To the editor:

Economic development in Kansas of late has suffered several serious setbacks: the recent constitutional limits to civil rights, the Kansas Board of Education’s continued mockery of science, and the national and international perception that Kansas is one of the more backward states in the nation and may well be, as the bumper-sticker has it, “as bigoted as you think.”

Kansas banking interests, chambers of commerce, tourist organizations, industrial leaders, public servants and others working for a more prosperous Kansas, MUST confront this destructive trend and reverse it quickly. They must convince investors, managers, educated workers, tourists and others that Kansas is not controlled by ignorant bigots.

Seventy years I’ve been a Kansan. Never have I been so ashamed of my state.

Roy E. Gridley,

Lawrence