To the editor:

I support moving the Americana Music Academy into the old Lawrence Arts Center at Ninth and Vermont, displacing the Langston Hughes literacy project. Langston Hughes spent time in Lawrence and went on to become a very important writer. It is important to build memorials so that people will know that Lawrence, Kansas, has had a brush with his greatness. We should put a Langston Hughes quote on the front of City Hall or name a school after him. Oh wait, we already did that. Maybe dedicate a wing in a new and improved library to him.

Lawrence is an ongoing cultural mecca. There are people now struggling with their first chords at the Americana Music Academy who will someday merit memorializing. The old Lawrence Art Center deserves to pulsate with creativity again.

Steve Mason,

Lawrence