Cheyenne Municipal Judge Ronn Jeffrey has worked with kids in Cheyenne for 43 years, and says what's changed over those years is that now people are not as engaged with their neighbor's kids as they once were. "When I was growing up (on Cheyenne's West Side) it didn't matter that you had single moms, because everyone in the neighborhood helped raise every kid in the neighborhood," Jeffrey told the club at its June 10 meeting, which was held at LCCC. 
 
Jeffrey said he had researched Rotary Clubs and what they do in preparing for speaking to the last Rotary District Conference which was held in Cheyenne. "You should have someone in your club focused on following and influencing legislation which affects kids, since that's your focus," he said. Jeffrey's remarks hit home for some members we talked to following the meeting.
 
 
"That was one of the best talks I've heard at any meeting," said Club Secretary Brenda Laird, who also served as the hostess for the club's visit to the college's cafeteria. Laird and others said that Jeffrey should be somehow kept in contact with the club because of his vast knowledge of the interplay between kids and their communities. Jeffrey once served as a family counselor, something he's very proud of.
He told stories of how he, as a judge, connected a child's marijuana smoking habits to the pain it was causing the child's mother. He said he had the in-court policeman bring a set of handcuffs up to the bench, and instead of having the repeat juvenile offender shackled, Judge Jeffrey said he was going to put them on the mother, telling the kid that "your mother is going to feel every bit of your pain and your loneliness when you go to jail--every moment of it," so he might as well handcuff the mother. The woman later told Judge Jeffrey that had straightened out her child.
Comparing today's youth to that of yesterday, Judge Jeffrey said he had heard a quote from a wise man once that ran something along the lines of, "kids today are just not as good as they once were...they're more lawless, etc." and that he attributed the quote to Aristotle (384-322 BC).

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