Iowa’s 52-year-old Governor doesn’t know how to send e-mail. Governor Tom Vilsack — the pitch man who’s trying to lure young people back to the state and expand the state’s high-tech industries — admits his staff prints off e-mail for him to read. Vilsack is using his e-illiteracy as an excuse for the destruction of office records that a newspaper reporter requested. Vilsack’s technological inadequacy is causing a stir among the computer savvy. Seventy-three-year-old Doris Kelley of Davenport sends and receives e-mail just about every day, Kelley says she’s sure the Governor can do it if she can do it. She guesses it’s just “lack of desire” on the part of Vilsack to learn how to email. Kelley began her on-line life about six or seven years ago in an effort to keep in touch with a scattered family.Kelley says her son was living in the south and her husband came home with a computer one day. A friend helped set it up and “from there we were in business” Kelley says. E-mail is a “simple process” according to Kelley. Kelley has a sister in Montana, a sister in Florida, a brother in Missouri and a brother in Wisconsin and they e-mail one another regularly. Her 84-year-old sister in Montana e-mails everyone in the family — everyday. Kelley, who is a retired nurse, often visits a website called “jigzone” where she puts together a jigsaw puzzle, on her computer. Kelley says “the computer is a great thing for anybody to enjoy.” Including the Governor.
