How many times do you read the D&C and say, “Dag nabit, Deputy Dawg! That there’s a great letter to the editor. It’s nice to see somebody sane writing in.” I do it frequently, and it seems like there’s a lot of progressive patriots out in Rochester-land putting it on the line for everyone to see. It takes time, thought, and either luck or patience to get a good letter printed, and they can inspire, inform, and raise the level of debate on the important stuff.

These people are heroes. Ordinary heroes, maybe, but still heroes to us. For all we know, we could disagree with them on every other issue, but we want to reward and recognize them for getting it right.

How will we do that?

We’re going to have a “LTE of the Week” contest. Every day, one of us will select our favorite LTE from the D&C, and highlight it here. We’ll give the writer a quick call just to thank them and let them know they’re in the running for the contest. On Thursday, we’ll vote on the letters from the past week, and the winner will get a signed certificate from us, as well as a “coupon” for one free drink at our local Drinking Liberally, or a free copy of this local artist’s CD.

We want to have a couple of other prizes for folks to choose from as well, that would ideally involve other local progressive organizations. Anyone have ideas? Put them below. MetroJustice? DfA? Have any swag?

I’ll be posting the first contestant shortly.

Related posts:

1. FDL contest: Vote Eric Massa
2. Star-Gazette nixes mass-produced letters to the editor
3. Joe Bruno Caption Contest
4. Stem cell vote this week
5. So tell us, what should RT do now?