CHEERS to CVPH Medical Center for offering free telephone and television services to its patients. The hospital is also now providing free WiFi so patients can have laptop Internet service. The phones and TVs used to be charged to the patients, and they were not covered by insurance. The innovation shows that CVPH is always evaluating and discussing ways to make a hospital stay more tolerable, if not enjoyable. Hospitality ought to be a hallmark of a hospital.

CHEERS to Bart Gaffney, one of the driving forces and, really, the face behind the North Country's pro-life movement. We don't offer up a Cheer for that affiliation, necessarily, but for being recognized for his passionate efforts by publication of his photograph on the front page of the Washington Times Jan. 22. Gaffney was in Washington for the 37th-annual March for Life. The day before the rally, he joined another, much smaller, gathering across the street from the White House to express his views there. A photographer from the Times snapped him as he stood holding his placard, and the editors chose the picture for Page 1. We're not taking sides on the abortion debate, but we would recognize anyone, in any endeavor, who had been rewarded for persistent effort with such prominent treatment on a national stage. Gaffney has spent his retirement years dedicating all his time, it seems, to his most earnestly felt cause. Few North Country people in any line — politics, sports, business or anything else — get such billing in a metropolitan newspaper.

CHEERS to Stan Ransom, director of Plattsburgh Public Library, for going well beyond what anybody could reasonably argue was his responsibility in helping a local woman. The woman and her family had gone to the library on a Saturday night and realized after they left and the library had closed that she may have left her purse on a counter there. That certainly was occasion for some serious anxiety for all. The woman called and left a message outlining her fears on Ransom's phone. Always an accommodating public servant, he went down to the library first thing Sunday morning and, to his own relief, found the purse, whereupon he hand-delivered it to the woman's house. The family was very grateful for the efforts he made on his day off to put their mind at ease about the purse and its valuable contents. To some people, this may seem like a small gesture, but it's an indication of the kind of obligation Ransom and the library staff feel toward the public. And don't tell the woman it's a small gesture. Imagine her own sense of relief after a tough night with her nerves.