If you are in the Louisville area, columnist Bob Hill ran a prominent column in this morning's Courier-Journal concerning Donnie Loweth's fight to save his family's cemetery on Blackiston Mill Road. (I've asked the C-J webmaster to add Bob's column to the stories on the C-J webpage at http://www.courier-journal.com.) For reasons that I fully understand, Bob Hill had to tone down his article, lest he and the paper risk being sued by the property owners. He couldn't say that they had paved over two-thirds of this cemetery and that about half of the shopping center's parking lot is over graves. Though we have the survey evidence and circa 1923 photos of the cemetery showing dozens of stones in the now-blacktopped portion of the cemetery, the fact remains that, under current Indiana law, the property owners can get away with this! IT'S LEGAL!!! The real story here is the insensitivity of our lawmakers in making this possible. Write letters today to your Legislators, especially Rep. Markt L. Lytle (D) of Madison, a funeral director who may be sympathetic to this cause. The Indiana State Legislators' e-mail and mailing addresses are available at: http://www.state.in.us/cgi-bin/legislative/legislator_list.cgi If you haven't read Bill Shaw's Sunday 8/23/98 "Death of a Cemetery" article in the Indianapolis Star, see http://www.starnews.com/news/citystate/98/aug/0822SN_rhoads.html for the full devastating article and photo. I'm asking you to take a minute to write a concise, heartfelt letter to the Editor of the Courier-Journal pleading for overhaul of the statutes that make this sort of thing possible. It's only by reinforcing and bolstering the public's awareness of the devastating impact of current law on pioneer cemeteries in this state and others that we can perhaps pluck the heartstrings of the legislators who make this sort of thing possible. The other sad side of this story is that it is happening all over Indiana and everywhere in the country. Unless there is a great grassroots consciousness-raising effort, nothing will change. The e-mail address for the Editorial Department is: cjletter@louisv02.gannett.com The snail-mail address is: Readers' Forum The Courier-Journal P.O. Box 740031 Louisville, Kentucky 40201-7431 The fax number is: (502) 582-4290 Be sure to include your full address and telephone number or else they will not print your letter, though your street address will not be published. Lois