LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Where do we begin?

To the community:

It all started back in August when a group of friends, family and former classmates and even people who had never met Marcus got together at the home of one of his former teachers.

We will never forget the phone call when they were telling us about their meeting and all the suggestions they had on fundraisers to help out.

We went back to the ICU unit on our next scheduled visit to tell Marcus about the Friends of Marcus Facebook page, T-shirts and some of the plans like car shows, chili supper and auction and all sorts of things and he smiled and said: “Save me a T-shirt.”

The new of the outpouring of love andprayers and what our community was doing went through out the Baptist Hospital.

We had nurses and doctors telling us they were looking at the Friends of Marcus Facebook page and that we had a truly amazing community (which we already knew).

There will never be enough words to express our gratitude for all you have done - from all the churches in the area that had special prayer services and love offerings to the spoken and unspoken words of friends and family to the many cards, flowers, food and contributions made to the Friends of Marcus fund.

Keep us in your prayers and thoughts.

THE FAMILY OF MARCUS NELSON Pea Ridge, Ark.

Won’t visit Crystal Bridges

To the editor:

I read that they are expecting to have a lot of people visit the new billion dollars (plus) Crystal Bridges Museum when it opens up. I want everyone to be on notice that I, for one, will not be going to visit it. It is not only a waste of time and money, but it was built in the back of the American workers.

Millions of American jobs have been lost by Wal-Mart and Sam’s corporations. Every time they build a new store, it puts other well-established businesses out of business.

Additionally, they probably sell less than 20 percent of their merchandise which is American made. Then, on top of that, when you go in to purchase their cheap foreign-made products, theyhave to remind you with a big sign at the door of how much they are helping the local organizations that they helped impoverish in the first place. Talk about slapping themselves on the back.

But then again, everyone already knows all of this.

Everyone that uses one of their self-checkout machines is also cutting someone else out of a job. And now, even before I get this letter turned into the newspaper, I read that someone has donate 10 million dollars so that the kids can go to the museum. What a waste of money there also.

Just think of all the water wells that money could pay for in these third world nations, or as a matter of fact, in this nation.

BOYD B. MCNIEL Pea Ridge, Ark.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 09/28/2011