During Montana’s 2007 legislative session, a nasty letter to the editor called me a silver spoon elitist for opposing $17 million for full-day kindergarten. (I have data to support my position.) My opinion about education developed during my formative years with 10 to 15 other ranch kids in a one room country school. It was great. Here is a memorable, although not quite typical, school day for this nine-year-old kid.

I lived with my parents and two brothers on the family ranch in the foothills of Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. It was my responsibility to feed and water the chickens; not a task I performed with enthusiasm. One spring a ferocious skunk was decimating my flock. My losses were soon to put me out of business, which I thought a plus, but I decided removing Mr. Skunk was the responsible thing to do.

I found a rusted old steel-jawed trap in the barn, so I lubed it with penetrating oil and stomped it back into working condition. Hunkering down on all fours, I slid the trap under the shed and wired the chain to a nearby post. “Take that Mr. Skunk,” I confidently thought to myself. “This is hardball.”

Right after breakfast the next morning, I set my silver spoon on the table and ran to the chicken house to check my trap line. I got him! Now what? Dispatching Mr. Skunk became more complicated than I anticipated. I chose my long bow. (It wasn’t really a “choice”. Other than a club or a hatchet, it was the only weapon I was allowed to handle unsupervised. In hind sight, supervision was in order that morning.) The trap chain was six feet long so when the skunk was jerked from under the shed, I was within spraying distance. Every time I jumped back to nock and fire an arrow, the skunk scampered under the chicken house. I needed help. Every frontiersman needs a side kick, after all Lewis had Clark, so I sprinted to the house and solicited the aid of my younger brother, Blaine. He put down his silver spoon and reluctantly followed me to the chicken house. I explained my plan.

“You pull the skunk from under the shed,” I whispered in my hunting voice. “I’ll stand back about ten feet with my arrow at full draw, and the second I yell ‘jump’ you leap safely out of the way and I’ll shoot the skunk.”

“Okay,” Blaine agreed. Since he was only seven he wasn’t as wise about hunting matters as me, so he was the designated dragger and I was the designated shooter. (There are certain benefits to seniority.)

Our first assault failed. The enemy artillery decimated my front lines and my forces grumbled about deserting. I delivered a “win one for the Gipper” speech and Blaine bravely charged into another volley of enemy fire. (Everyone should have a younger brother.) At last, we won! Because of the time crunch, we skipped pillaging the spoils of war. We grabbed our lunch boxes and sprinted the half mile to school for what became an exceptionally short day. We hadn’t been at school five minutes before Mrs. Rhodes discovered the entire third grade (me), and one-third the first grade (Blaine), smelled like skunk. We were sent home with the day’s school work.

I told you that long story so I could tell you this short one: Late one evening, fifteen years later I was in the pathology lab at vet school. Steve, one of my Colorado classmates, boasted his parents moved him from a small school in Wyoming to a large school in Boulder, where he received a superior education. “Vet school is so competitive I wouldn’t be here had it not been for that,” he explained.

“That’s funny,” I thought to myself. “My schooling started in Forsyth, then Ingomar, Slack, Ranchester, Dayton, the University Of Wyoming, and now Colorado State. Here I am looking through the same microscope as someone with a ‘superior education’. There must be another factor.” There is, and this finally brings me to my point.

Attention students: Schools in every state are facing budget cuts. Education advocates will claim tax increases are needed to properly fund a quality education. It is not funding that determines the quality of your education, it’s you. The minute you learn to read, all the world’s knowledge is at your disposal. What you do with that knowledge is entirely up to you. It is your effort which most determines your success. Be persistent. Pulling on the chain one more time might get you the skunk.