LETTER: Don’t exclude my spouse

Editor,

My wife graduated from USU a couple of years ago. She is now working, and I am still going to school full time. As you can imagine, we don’t have a lot of time we can spend together. One thing we’ve done the last two semesters was to get her a spouse card. With a spouse card we were able to spend time together while we exercised.

Unfortunately, we can’t do that this year. A spouse card no longer gets my wife into the Fieldhouse equipment.

This caught us by surprise. We tried to find out why this rule has been changed. The only reason we’ve heard is that “they” want more room for students. I don’t understand this. Capacity has been increased, so access has been restricted? Why has adding more machines made it necessary to limit who can use them? We also talked to the people at the Fieldhouse. It turns out that (just like years past) the facility is crowded at peak hours, but from mid morning until about 5 p.m. they are only half-full.

We can’t afford the $80-a-month fee to go to another fitness center, so we just haven’t been able to exercise regularly this year. By restricting my wife (who is willing to buy the $30+ pass) my access has been restricted. Our campus is supposed to be a community, but it seems to me that only single people are welcome here.

For the grand opening of the new exercise facilities they told us “the weight is over.” For me the weight has just begun.

Keith Richards