Convicted former creamery owner ‘a good man’

To the editor:

I am disappointed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Retta-Rae Randall’s insulting statements to Judge Burgess about Kyle Beus during his sentencing.

Randall states she could find no evidence of Beus working a 40-hour-a-week job. That is because Beus works 140 hours a week. Anyone who owns a business knows this.

Randall calls Beus a cheat, liar and thief, which is far from the truth. If he is guilty of anything, it was not giving up on a nearly impossible endeavor.

Kyle Beus should be applauded for trying to save Alaska’s dairy industry when no one else could.

I know Kyle Beus personally through the Alaska Brain Injury Association. Beus has given countless hours of his time freely to helping parents with brain-injured children, like his daughter. He is all about helping others.

Beus’ only motive to start the creamery was to help the farmers when the previous creamery failed. The Beus dairy ended years earlier the day their daughter was brain-injured in a car crash.

Kyle Beus was trying to get restrictive agricultural grants to work so the creamery would not fail.

Failed creameries and farms are happening all over America. The government grants and programs are not helping the way they are constructed.

We should be asking ourselves how these grants can work better for the agricultural industry, not pin the blame on hard-working men and women trying to save our farms and dairies with so much stacked against them.

I ask Judge Tim Burgess to reconsider Kyle Beus’ sentencing. He does not deserve to spend one minute in jail. The courts and the media have beaten up a good man enough.

Terri Block

Wasilla