Hi, list! Thought you might like this article about Lee Modrow, the sexton in Lincoln. Lee is quite a fellow; he has shared all his cemetery information with me and I've been sharing my new finds with him. He is not on the internet and in fact has nothing computerized, but he knows about our list and is getting more curious about it. I might get him on the 'net yet! What he does to find graves -- as described in this story -- I've seen, and it really works. It's amazing. I asked for my own set of rods for Christmas! Hope you enjoy this article by Carl Manning of the Associated Press; it ran in the Salina Journal... Tracee Lincoln – The tombstones cast long shadows and the prairie winds quietly rustle low-hanging branches as Lee Modrow slowly walks about the city cemetery searching for unmarked graves. It’s a quest that may leave some doubting when they hear he uses a pair of 30-inch stainless steel rods that swing freely in wooden handles for searching beneath the soil. But in a town where many people view water witching – finding underground water with divining rods – as nothing out of the ordinary, Modrow draws few stares when he says: "I can find bodies with a divining rod." Folks put great stock in what the 72-year-old Modrow says. Many freely admit that while they can’t explain it, they accept it as truth simply because he tells it that way. "He is just as straight as an arrow. He isn’t out to flimflam, con or anything else like that," said Claude Fillingim, funeral director at the mortuary where Modrow worked until he retired in 1992. Fillingim, who’s know Modrow for three decades, added, "I have not seen a demonstration, but I have no reason to disbelieve him. It is so matter of fact with him. He’s not impressed with his ability at all." Apparently, so credible is Modrow that city officials don’t bother to dig where he points. They update city cemetery records based on what he says and won’t sell a grave plot if he says there’s already a body there. "Yep, he can do it. I know it’s hard to believe, but it works. I’ve seen it work," City Councilman Glenn Stegman said. "If somebody told me, I’d be skeptical, but when Lee tells me, I believe him. He’s as honest a person as I know." Stegman, a bank vice president, also is chairman of the committee that oversees the 18-acre City of Lincoln Cemetery where Modrow is the sexton, or caretaker. "You don’t have to dig it up because it did the same thing over there where we know there’s a body," Stegman said. "The explanation? I have no idea. Is it magnetic? I don’t know." A tall, lanky man, Modrow realized his talent in the mid-1990s when someone showed him how to find bodies with divining rods, and the first time he tried it, "I nearly went into orbit." While his ability may leave some shaking their heads, Modrow does offer an explanation of sorts. "The mineral in the body, in the bones, and the magnetic field in the universe is what makes it work. Then there is something in your body," Modrow said as he walks across the cemetery. With rods poised in front of him, Modrow slowly approaches a grave. Soon, they swing outward like a gate with no apparent effort by him to move them. "You got to hold them level," he said, as the rods start to move. "Yep, there’s a body down there," he said. "Now I am over the body, see how it swings out. If it only goes half way out, it is a child." He said if there’s no body, the rods won’t move. "It works on anything for me – cement, steel, wooden coffins. It doesn’t make any difference, it works," he said. "Over the bodies, you can feel it start pulling. I do know when you get tired, it won’t work. You can lose your energy." But Modrow said he isn’t trying to prove anything. "It doesn’t bother me if people don’t believe. I have done it enough to know it works. I can go anywhere and do it," he said. "I haven’t had anybody call me a crackpot, but if they do, I don’t care. Modrow doesn’t consider his ability unique, saying, "Anybody who can witch for water, it should work for them." And while there are some who say they can do what Modrow does, nobody claims to do it better. He agreed there is reason for skeptics; after all what he does is a little more surreal than branding cattle or cutting wheat. "People look at you funny sometimes. I had one fellow say ‘I have known you all my life and I know you don’t lie, so I accept it,’ " Modrow said.