Letter: Supports renaming Dean Watts Park to honor Officer Jason Ellis

June 5, 2013

Dear Editor,

I just heard a suggestion to rename Dean Watts Park in Bardstown in honor of our local hero Officer Jason Ellis. This is a wonderful idea!! No offense to Dean Watts but do we really need a politician’s name attached to something that will hopefully live on for generations to come? The name Jason Ellis does deserve such recognition.

Officer Ellis was a fine, brave man whose life deserves to be emulated. His story will be told and should be told for generations to come. In West Virgina about every other building, bridge, road… bears the name of Democrat Senator Robert Byrd (that wasn’t even his given name and he was a member of the KKK to boot !). Who over the age of 50 even knows who Sutherland, Wilson, Talbott, Rapier, or Rowan. were? In a few more years, who will remember who Dean Watts was?

In recent years we honored Lt. General Hal Moore whose name deserves to be remembered. But why should those who control OUR purse strings deserve to be recognized in such a way? — and honoring a living incumbent politician thusly? What kind of precedence did that set?

Mrs. Cathy Lawrence Targonski
Bardstown