Stegner

I, too, am a collector of quotations, and after joking that newspaper stories should have epigraphs, I suggest one, from Wallace Stegner, that seems apropos to our conversation about Cohn: Present your subject in his own terms, judge him in yours.

Herrero grew up reading Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner — chroniclers of the Southwest who readily admitted their own “anti-social” tendencies and believed humans were the ruin of the canyon lands, of desert solitude.

It struck Stegner as wrong when he learned Idaho was locking people with mental illness in prison without a conviction.

Stegner persuaded fellow lawmakers to set aside $3 million to design the facility.

Joe Stegner, a former Republican leader, helped bring Idaho closer than ever toward building a hospital to replace the cell block in 2007 and 2008.