In these days of $3-a-gallon gasoline, mass transit becomes all the more important. It was good news to hear, as the La Grande and Island City blue bus shuttle celebrated its first birthday in April, that ridership is higher than expected.

Seniors, students and those temporarily without other means of transportation have found the shuttle to be convenient and reliable. It has many enthusiastic supporters.

Sitting in a geographical bowl, La Grande and Island City have to be concerned about air quality. And the bus service, spearheaded by the energetic efforts of Frank Thomas of Community Connection of Northeast Oregon, helps contribute to clean air and encourages energy conservation.

The week of its anniversary the blue bus service provided 721 rides, or almost 12 rides an hour. That’s up from 209 rides for the first week in April 2005. EOU students account for 22 percent of riders on the fixed route, and it’s important the cities work together with the college to continue providing this valuable service.

In these days of high gas prices, it’s important to think about carpooling, riding bicycles to work or taking the bus. More people should consider making the bus part of their daily routine.

Salute to Hi-Lites staff

Team effort is important in more than just basketball and football. It’s also important in journalism and in life.

Tiger Hi-Lites, the La Grande High School student newspaper, proved this. The student newspaper recently won third place in best-in-show competition for newspapers with up to eight pages at the national high school journalism convention in San Francisco. Editor-in-Chief Ellyn Herman, who took over the helm at the second semester in January following Mollie Ford, who served as editor-in-chief the first semester, rightly salutes her team for making the award possible.

The Tigers also took home some individual hardware. Alex Garnhart-Bushakra won a superior rating for editorial writing, and Evylyn Brown won an excellent rating for on-air reporting.

The third-place finish in best-in-show is the highest Tiger-Hi Lites has had since LHS started attending the national journalism convention in 1994. A lot of the credit for the success of the program year after year has to go to Joseph Duncan, longtime LHS English teacher and Tiger-Hi Lites adviser. Every year Duncan puts the students into a position where they have the best possible chance to succeed.