To the editor:

As the owner of the residence at 1500 Haskell, I wish the Journal-World and the various school consolidation boards would stop referring to my residence as a “site,” as if it is a vacant lot. It has been a home since the house was built in 1904, a farmstead since the barn was built in 1910 and, throughout its 107-plus years, always a single-family residence. To refer to it as a “site” belittles and depersonalizes my home as a place, full of history and memories over the generations.

I have lived here since 1989 and maintained the house and outbuildings in their original form. I have reserved green space for wildlife and added trees, gardens, a small orchard, berry patches, grapes and extensive landscaping around the house. 1500 Haskell is much more than a “site,” ripe for the new school complex. It’s a home.