To the editor:

The county commissioners have unanimously taken the position that the Watkins Community Museum needs a professional administrator/ fund-raiser. A nonprofit organization these days simply cannot maintain a healthy pulse without one.

To make room in the museum’s tiny budget for a person with the required skills, the board must perform what amounts to a heart transplant. A loyal, hardworking person with great passion for the museum must be removed to make way for a multi-skilled and equally committed executive director. Yes, it is tragic. And yes, it is absolutely necessary. Months of review by long-standing and newer board members have failed to produce consensus on any alternative.

The city’s sesquicentennial 2004 presents a unique opportunity to put our history on the national map. Let’s seize it.

Marilyn Hull,

Lawrence