I hope a lot of you have read the letter posted at the post office saying that postal officials in Colorado have chosen the new location. It is west of the Conoco convenience store/car wash. The location is east of Laming road, and north of the highway about a half-mile. It would be at least a four-mile roundtrip, I’m sure.

A lot of us in the community wrote letters requesting that the new post office be located on the East Fourth Street location which is about three blocks east of Pleasant. Those requests were ignored.

That East Fourth location would have acknowledged that we have a lovely downtown area that we wish to preserve — downtown would just be elongated a bit. This Laming Road location will splinter the downtown, destroy some businesses, and leave us with no concept of “our town,” no more Main Street America for us. In today’s world it is very hard to maintain the old values and closeness of a small town.

About six years ago we beautified our downtown. We widened our street and sidewalks and put in streetlights and trees. The merchants will be paying for that for a total of 20 years. Did we do that just so the postal department could come in and arbitrarily start a process that will be so detrimental to this colorful little main street?

It’s fun to shop downtown, and the community has worked to keep shoppers and diners here.

Think how nice it is to live in a place that has a retail district: Pelzl’s Do It Best, Lenahan’s Hardware, Shilling’s Electric, Ladd’s Plumbing, and Himpel’s Lumber yard. We also have Holst Pharmacy, Village Floral, Sandy’s Floral, a picturesque goat soap shop, a Kansas Firearms Specialities Shop, Midwest Carpet. We have restaurants: Bichelmeyer’s, Fourth Street Cafe and Pammy Sue’s Bakery and Cafe.

I’m sure we realize that once we get into our cars to go on the highway to the post office, it will be very simple to continue on to another community to shop or dine.

And speaking of the highway, how many fatalities will occur when all our local people join the frantic rush of traffic on the highway, adding to the congestion and hazard, to get our daily mail, send a package, pick up a package or a registered letter, or buy stamps?

Everyone says, “They will have to put a stoplight out there!” I’m very sure that within 10 years there will be a stop light there. How many accidents in that interim will there be? And putting a stoplight at Laming Road might prevent one being put at the busy intersection by Community National Bank. Which should we choose to do first?

Betty Stevens,
Tonganoxie.

Congratulations to Legion team

To the editor:

Too often, as we go about our lives, we do not take the time to compliment, when we encounter pleasant experiences.

We have just encountered one of the most pleasant periods of our lives. Although this has been long in terms of years, it has been so very short a period now that it is over. We are speaking of an experience that involves a group of young men, of which our son is part. These young men completed a task on July 30. The group of young men make up the Tonganoxie Legion ball teams. Our experience is with team No. 1, as they were broken down, but all are included.

We began our experience with some of these young men when we had the privilege of coaching them early in their careers in T-ball and a little beyond in little league. Our purpose for this letter is to make sure that these men are recognized for their outstanding performance, not only with winning the Legion tournament this past week, but with being the most honorable group of young men we have ever encountered. This would include both on and off the field. They have persevered through their careers, with regards to being honorable in victory and defeat. They have seen adversity on and off the field. The trials of the past four years alone were tremendous. Still they were able to raise their heads and struggle to the top.

It has been our extreme pleasure to be able to be both a part of and witnesses to the growth and accomplishments of each and every one of these young men. This chapter may be closing for them, but the ability to handle the past will forge the men that they will become. If the past is any indication, they have a brilliant future. They have shown us all how to be better individuals.

Gentlemen, we watch in amazement.

Kerry and Treasa Putthoff,
Tonganoxie.