To the editor:

During the recent years of turmoil and change at the Watkins Community Museum of History, Judy Sweets, the museum curator, has consistently been a reliable, imaginative, resourceful, thoughtful and helpful presence at the museum. Her commitment to making our history vividly meaningful most recently has been evident in the National Park Services grant that she received for an exhibition on Lawrence and the Underground Railroad and for Lawrence artist Wayne Wildcat to create a major painting for the museum on Lawrence’s role in the Underground Railroad.

We are dismayed that Judy Sweets has been prevented from pursuing fund-raising plans to secure this significant grant. With the opening of the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati, national interest in this subject has never been higher, and yet the opportunity to create a major exhibition to educate others about Lawrence’s critical role in this movement has just been canceled. Recognizing that changes at the museum involve creating a comprehensive review and reorganization, we believe that reaching for this goal has overridden the museum’s commitment to illuminate our community’s history. Not only has the extraordinary professional and personal service of the museum curator been rudely denied, but we have lost an important opportunity for a critical part of its history to be showcased.

We hope the museum will support Judy Sweets — both as an asset to the museum and the community and in her efforts to seek alternative funding for this timely and significant project.

Nancy Hiebert,

Elizabeth Schultz,

Barbara Watkins,

Lawrence