When President Bush Visited the Amish

Extract from the March 29, 1989 issue of the Budget:

Dateline: Akron, Pa.

IT'S a girl for the Irvin Steiner family named Marlene Joyce, 10th child, 4th daughter....

Yesterday morning, President Bush arrived in Lancaster Co. to give a talk on drugs at the Conestoga Valley High School. He was greeted wildly by over 3,000 people.

The President also requested a conference with some leaders of the Amish and Old Order Mennonites, which was held at Penn Johns, a Mennonite and Amish school at Leola.

This is the first time in history a sitting president had a conference with the Plain people. Sitting in a round-table discussion with 12 Amish and Mennonite leaders, he congratulated them as ``a shining example of what family & faith can do.'' Bush asked them for their community's formula for avoiding the scourge of drugs.

One of the Plain leaders told him that values are extremely important in Plain family life. ``This is what we uphold more than money,'' he said....

We, of course, know drugs are not entirely eradicated from some of the young people of our Plain churches and communities.

It is probably minimal, though, compared to the rest of society.