The Allen American (Allen, Tex.), Vol. 21, No. 20, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 11, 1990 Page: 2 of 59
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Page 2A — The Allen American — Sunday, March 11, 1990
Opinions/Columns
Letters to the Editor
Between the Creeks
/
Gwendyn Pettit
Collectors preserve old varieties of seeds
A
1
Donna Francis
Editorial Assistant
Follow-up to
letter on trees
Debbie Tackett
General Manager
Jan Van Allan
Retail Advertising
In the past 50 years, hundreds of
old varieties of com were lost to
extinction. However, some farmers
around Allen have made an effort to
keep alive Yellow Dent com, a varie-
ty that grows well in this locality. We
do not know when this com was first
introduced here, but the variety was
created in the 1860s in Illinois when
James Reid planted Gordon Hopkins
com next to a variety called Little
Yellow. By selecting each year the
ears with the characteristics he
thought best for seed com, each far-
mer developed his own improved
variety of the open-pollinated com.
Ervin Arnold has com that descends
from Yellow Dent raised by his
father, W.C. Arnold, at the turn of
the century. He thinks it is possible
that his grandfather, Quincy Arnold,
planted the same com even earlier.
Now retired from farming, Arnold
J.W. Carpenter raised large quan-
tities of Yellow Dent while he was
farming to sell for seed com. He
does not like hybrid corn. “Hogs
won’t hardly eat it,” he says.
Although now retired, he still raises
some Yellow Dent for seed. He also
has the rare Pencil Cob com.
of dedicated public service. He’s got
my vote in the March 13 Republican
primary. We need someone that will
represent Allen. I hope you will
study his qualifications. If you do, I
feel confident you will vote for him as
well.
Mickey Christakos
Allen
Don’t complain,
participate
Dear editor:
My job gave me an unusual oppor-
tunity last year: I attended every
meeting of the Allen City Council.
And though I no longer work in
Allen, I continue to live here because
of impressions formed during that
time.
I want to live in a community
whose leaders have vision and the
courage to pursue it, even during
tough times, and whose citizens still
care enough about each other and
Teens playing
Russian roulette
Dear editor:
I am writing this letter on behalf of
people like myself who have lost
loved ones in alcohol-related acci-
dents. I cannot begin to tell you the
feelings of emptiness, pain and rage
that I felt when I lost my brother. He
was taken so suddenly and he, like
many other young people, thought it
would never happen to him. On Nov.
23, 1988, he and a friend lost their
lives while driving intoxicated. It
was a tragic accident that never had
to happen.
Young people seem to think they
are invincible. They are brain-
washed by the media to have
success, wealth, beauty and happi-
ness. All they have to do is choose
“less filling” or “tastes great.” They
see professional athletes promoting
alcohol as a do-good, feel-good cure
plans to plant enough com in his gar-
den to make seed to keep the strain
going. He tells me that old-time far-
mers saved their seed com from
year to year and argued with their
kin and neighbors over the merits of
their com, that it had longer and
wider grains or deeper dents.
Arnold said, “Everybody thought
they had the best com.”
Ruschhaupt for
county judge
Dear editor:
From time to time I get discour-
aged and even disgusted with poli-
tics and political campaigns. Howev-
er, every once in a while, there is a
candidate who lifts my spirits and
makes me realize that there still are
people running for office who are de-
dicated to public service. I think Al
Ruschhaupt is such a man. I urge
voters of Allen to look at Al’s qual-
ifications. The position of county
judge is an administrative position.
We need someone with proven busi-
ness skills. Al is a successful busi-
ness man (he owns Allen Stationers,
Plano Office Supply and McKinney
Office Supply, by the way) who has
spent decades of work in govern-
ment and in civic organizations
working for the betterment of Collin
County. As county judge, Al would
their city to get involved.
The tree-lined entrance into town
and new civic buildings demonstrate
the type of long-range planning I
admire. Rather than settling for a
modest library, completely stocked
with books, Allen chose to build for
the future. Yes, we are struggling to
stock our library, and thanks to
those who have raised about
$400,000 to date. But when it is
complete, we will have something
wonderful that will serve us well for
many years.
nice martyristic ring to it but is hard-
ly a valid comparison; African-
Americans were not endangering
public health.
Cyndie Johnson
Allen
Pettit is a longtime Allen resident
with an avid interest in this area’s
history.
Mark Warnken
Editor
Another unusual thing is the
sidewalk under the bridge at state
Highway 5. What for? I wouldn’t be
caught dead under there, and I’m
sure everyone else would feel the
same. Let us face it, we don’t have
that many citizens who walk to
where they are going in Allen. The
flood waters would wash it out in the
spring rains.
Let us really make Allen beautiful
and all of us proud to live here with
some quick action on these matters.
Pete and Evelyn Peabody
Allen
“If you eat, you are involved in
agriculture” is a slogan in a seed
catalog. The truth of this statement
has hit us recently as the effects of
the December freeze have been
seen at the produce section of the
supermarket. For home gardeners,
the coming of spring gives hope of
vegetables later this year. Our fami-
ly gardener has just received a box of
seeds he ordered. After sorting
through the packets like a kid at
Christmas, he has gone out to plant
radishes in the backyard. Garden
seeds have been a major subject of
conversation since the first seed
catalog arrived between Christmas
and New Year’s.
The topic of seeds came up again
when I received a phone call early in
February from Biff Summers in
Northwest Arkansas. He is the son
of L.C. “Big Daddy” and “Miz Ted”
Summers of Allen. Biff Summers
was excited about receiving Yellow
Dent com seed that had originally
been raised by his grandfather,
Luther Summers, at Allen. He is a
collector of heirloom seed and is a
member of Seed Savers Exchange,
perhaps the largest of the groups
that exchange seed of rare vegetable
varieties. He wondered if I knew of
other seed that had been handed
down in families in the Allen area.
Maybe some of you can help with
this question. I am particularly in-
terested in garden seed.
My involvement in agriculture is
strictly in the eating, but at the hint
of history, I became interested in
heirloom seed. I found that there is a
concern among home gardeners be-
Ann Todd
Receptionist/Accounting
It is like putting your life in jeopar-
dy to cross Butler from downtown to
go east of FM2170. The added
trees, shrubs and Johnson grass
growing in the median strip this
summer will even make it worse.
Let us face it, we don’t have the
maintenance personnel to keep all
this clean, plus it is over-planted.
On the environmental situation,
take a lesson from Richardson,
which has had receptacles at Coit
and Beltline for over 10 years for
glass, cans and paper. They use this
money for trees and other beautiful
things. Maybe someone on the City
Council could make a call to find out
how profitable this is for them.
We allow people from outside
Allen to pick up our papers at the
drop boxes over Allen and make
money on these papers. The citizens
of Allen have been very good with
depositing their papers there. These
outside people empty the boxes
three or four times a week. Why are
we sleeping in council meetings and
not making this money?
It took us four years to correct the
left turn lane on Bethany to state
Highway 5 and to erect “no truck
parking” signs on Prestige Circle. Is
it going to take our sleeping city
Yellow Dent makes a good yellow
com meal. We had 60 pounds that
D.C. raised ground on a stone mill
this year. However, old-time farm
families around Allen usually raised a
patch of white com specially to make
com meal for their families. Ervin
Arnold said, “They thought only
poor folks had to eat yellow com
bread.”
Biff Summers was excited about receiving Yellow
Dent corn seed that had originally been raised by
his grandfather, Luther Summers, at Allen.
continue that long-standing pattern . management this long to correct
these inequities?
them. This way, none of the genes
are lost as they are shuffled from
plant to plant. This is as technical as I
am going to get, except to say that
there is concern that some impor-
tant crops are based on too small of a
gene pool, making the whole crop
vulnerable. Almost all com planted
in the U.S. is hybrid com that de-
scends from six parent lines.
LETTER POLICY: The Allen American welcomes letters to the editor on
subjects of interest to our readers. Short letters are most likely to be
chosen for publication, but the use of any material is at the discretion of the
editor. The editor reserves the right to edit letters to meet space require-
ments, to clarify, or to avoid obscenity, libel or invasion of privacy. Indi-
vidual complaints against businesses and letters thanking businesses for
small donations or other actions cannot be published.
Letters published do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies or
beliefs of this newspaper. All letters must bear the handwritten signature of
the writer and must include a hometown, an address, and work and home
telephone numbers for verification purposes. (The address and phone
numbers will not be printed.) Anonymous letters will not be printed.
Submissions should be sent to: Editor, The Allen American, P.O.
Box 27, Allen, Texas 75002 by noon on the Wednesday before the
desired Sunday of publication.
Dear editor:
Just a follow-up on George
Gowan’s letter to The Allen Ameri-
can (March 4). We give him a gold
medal for taking the time to write.
Saturday I returned to Allen via
Bethany from Central and as I have
in my years of living in Allen, saw the
same four or five sticks, so called
crepe myrtles, grace the parkway.
This is a disgrace to Allen and its
mayor and City Council, who
thought to make Allen more beauti-
ful was to decorate FM2170 with our
tax dollars and forget the rest.
Spread the trees around now
before they start to grow. To make
things worse, I understand we hired
an out-of-state landscape company
to do the work. This is really follow-
ing our policy of keeping business
and money in Allen. Also, what does
an out-of-state landscape person
know about what grows well in
Allen, Texas? Trees are not
supposed to be planted that close
together, and you are the laughing
conversation in Allen these days.
The Allen American
A Harte-Hanks Community Newspaper
205 D. West Main, P.O. Box 27
Allen, Texas 75002
727-3352
How many parents leave homes
unattended on weekends so that
their teen-agers can throw a party?
Why don’t parents ask their teen-
agers how many parties they havee
attended where there was no adult"
supervision or where alcohol was
available. Find out the number and
ages of teens who were attending
and who were drinking and then
driving their cars home.
cause many old varieties are being
dropped by seed companies for new
hybrid or exclusive varieties. Every-
one has a bigger, better, new im-
proved variety that will perhaps ful-
fill the advertised expectations,- but
if you plant the seed from one of
these hybrid wonders, chances are
you will come up with a weird lump
that does not at all resemble its pa-
rent. Often the new product is bet-
ter than the old vegetable in some
qualities, but new seed must be
purchased each year. It comes down
to a matter of choices and how much
we should rely on large seed com-
panies that are themselves parts of
huge conglomerates for this essen-
tial to the food chain.
Consolidation in the seed industry
has meant less variety available for
home gardeners. In the economics
of the big business of selling seed,
the needs of commercial growers
are most important; seeds for home
gardens are only a sideline. Water-
melons and other melons must stand
up to shipping. Tomatoes have ship-
ping and ripening requirements.
Each type of fruit and vegetable has
special qualities developed for can-
ning or shipping,. If a variety is not
used in large quantities by commer-
cial growers, the seed is dropped.
This year we find that it is difficult, if
not impossible, to find Bountiful
Beans, an old variety introduced in
1896. The variety available every-
where is Blue Lake, the canners’
favorite.
Most heirloom seeds are open-
pollinated, that is they pollinate
naturally or let the bees do it for
The good news is that if we work
together, we can make a difference
in. Allen, in Texas and in the wholes
United States. The most dynamic"
“driving while intoxicated” aware-
ness program I have ever seen will
be shown at the Allen High School on
Monday March 12 at 7 p.m. in the
cafeteria. If you only plan to spend
one hour this week with your junior
or senior high school student, this is
the hour. The audio/visual presenta-
tion could change the way Allen
parents and students view alcohol^
and driving. It made a lasting™
impression on me. I only wish my
brother had been able to see a
presentation like this one; perhaps
he would still be here today. For
him, it’s too late, but for you, there
will never be a better time than now
to educate yourself and your teen-
ager on the real dangers of DWI. In
loving memory of my brother, Les.
Debbie Gaddis
Allen m
FOR HOME DELIVERY, SERVICE AND BILLING
CALL 727-3352
Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Subscription Rates: *21/year, *15/6 months
__Outside Collin County: s27/year, *18/6 months
for hard work and discipline. And
they see a dog advertising that all
they have to do to be accepted by
the
crowd is “party with Bud.” What a
sad lie. If the media isn’t harmful
enough, we parents either have our
heads buried in the sand or simplO
don’t want to get informed about
what is happening to our youths.
I agree that it is easier to close our
eyes and ears to the warning signs
and not get involved with our child-
ren, or to say “everyone’s doing it.”
That used to be a line our kids used,
but I think it’s one of the biggest
cop-outs parents now use for not
standing up for what is right. Oure
young people are hearing "think
before you drink” and “know when
to say when.” When are they going
to start hearing “it’s against the law”
or “you cannot drink until you are
21?”
Smoking and
public health
Dear editor:
I’d like to respond to a letter I read
in a back issue of your newspaper
(Jan. 28) titled “A smoker’s point of
view.” The writer seems to have
missed the whole point of no-
smoking ordinances. They are in-
tended to limit the ability of smokers
to endanger public health. It is a
health issue, not a matter of smoking
being a “nasty habit. ” A statement in
a recent ad in The Allen American
announcing Trinity Medical Center’s
becoming a smoke-free hospital is
pertinent: “Scientific evidence
leaves no doubt that tobacco smoke
is the number one avoidable cause of
death in our society.”
As a medical technologist, I fre-
quently see the health problems
associated with smoking. Scientific
evidence now implicates second-
hand smoke, breathed in by non-
smokers who live and work in
smoke-filled areas, as a contributing
factor. So Ms. Boshell should under-
stand that non-smokers are not “in-
fringing on her rights by asking her
to give up what she enjoys doing.”
What they are asking her to do is
practice her habit in areas where it
will not infringe on the rights of non-
smokers to maintain a healthy lifes-
tyle.
I agree with Ms. Boshell that “foul
or abusive language in public places”
and “smelly perfume (often over bad
body odor)” are offensive, but they
don’t constitute a health risk. And
maintaining that “smokers are tre-
ated no better than blacks were tre-
ated not so many yeas ago” has a
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING - 727-SELL
The Allen American (USPS 051-180) is published biweekly, on Sun-
days and Wednesdays, by Harte-Hanks Community Newspapers
801 E. Plano Pkwy., Plano, TX 75074.
Second class postage paid at U.S. Post Office, Allen, TX 75002.
Postmaster: Send address changes to The Allen American, P.O Box
27, Allen, TX 75002.
Perhaps some teens don’t drink at
all, but that doesn’t stop them from
becoming victims of drunks on the
streets or from being injured or^
killed by being in a car with someone®
who has been drinking. The tragedy
is still the s.ame. Why do so many
parents sit complacently by while
our teens continue to play Russian
roulette with a drug that has taken
more lives than any other — alcohol-
related accidents?
Postal service
complaint
Dear editor:
I wonder how many people are
experiencing the same situation with
sending and receiving their mail.
Examples — called our local post
office, asked how long it would take a
letter to arrive in New Hampshire;
was told three days. It arrived at that
address seven days later.
From my mail box I posted a get-
well card to a friend in Allen; she
received it three months later.
I almost missed out on a life insur-
ance policy because of late delivery.
Have posted mail that other peo-
ple have never received.
Talked to a lady in Plano who said
it had taken a letter two weeks to
arrive from Massachusetts.
Now they say raise the postage.
I honestly believe it is no disser-
vice with our Allen postal service;
it’s after it leaves and before it ar-
rives at this destination.
Helen D. Dagley
Allen
ed
pk
i. WB
-3
One barrier to economic develop-
ment, according to the Allen Econo-
mic Development Alliance, is that
Allen has an identity problem. Peo-
ple aren’t sure where we are, much
less why they should do business
here. To sell Allen, we have to cre-
ate a visual impression for visiting
prospects that says, “Here is a uni-
que, progressive community where
your business can prosper.” The
new six-lane thoroughfare will com-
municate that message more convin-
cingly than any brochure we may de-
sign. The trees are an investment
which, in my opinion, will pay off.
Another exciting project I
observed last year was the city’s
progress toward purchasing Texins
Rod and Gun Club for use as a park.
While other city parks are designed
and used primarily for athletic
events, this one would provide a
place to get away from it all — to
hike and picnic in a beautiful setting.
The process has been long, and
I’m sure, frustrating, for council and
staff. Allen is a pioneer in reclaiming
such land for public use, and the
necessary agency approvals are
slow in coming. But .Allen just
doesn’t quit, and usually accom-
plishes what couldn’t be done (like
Extended Area Service). It must
seem a thankless task, but I, for one,
am glad they have the stamina to see
it through.
Our council members spend a
minimum of 20 hours a week on our
business, and receive in compensa-
tion a maximum of $10 a month. It’s
not easy to set spending priorities
when resources are scarce, but my
observation tells me they do a good
job.
If you have a question, I urge you
to attend council meetings. Agendas
are published in this newspaper a
day in advance.
Part of the responsibility for the
dialogue necessary for good govern-
ment rests on our shoulders. Com-
plaining to friends, or even writing
letters, cannot take the place of par-
ticipation: taking the time to listen
and to learn about complex issues,
then offering our opinions directly to
those who have agreed to serve.
Judy Edquist
Allen
Don’t criticize,
get involved
Dear editor:
I wanted to reply personally to
Ms. Nagy’s letter to the editor of
March 4, but her name does not
appear in the Allen phone book.
Ms. Nagy, community involve-
ment is the answer to your chal-
lenge, or the lack of. The Chamber
of Commerce is open not only to
businesses, but individuals as well
join the chamber. All citizens of Allen
have the right to run for public office,
run for city council or for the Allen
school board. There are several ser-
vice organizations here in your com-
munity that always need new mem-
bers. Join. Allen even offers a speci-
fic program that is especially de-
signed to educate its participants on
becoming city leaders called Lead-
ership Allen. Submit your applica-
tion.
Concerned citizens, the city, the
chamber and the service organiza-
tions are all well aware of the econo-
mic and educational problems that
this community faces; they deal with
them on a daily basis and through
various meetings and support from
: The Allen American; and they try to
; keep the people of Allen informed
; and invite them to be included on
; these decisions.
I have in my possession copies of
- The Allen American for the past
- year. The subjects of economic de-
. velopment and, more recently,
* year-round schooling appear on the
; front page of more than half of these
• issues. Read the paper.
A challenge should be made only if
you are ready to defend yourself.
Ms. Nagy, I challenge you and any
citizen of Allen that criticizes this
community without being involved
with it or supporting it.
Cindy Biagini
Secretary of Kiwanis Club of
Allen, member of the board of
Allen Chamber of Commerce,
participant in Leadership
Allen, member of the board of
Allen Eagle Athletic Associa-
tion
Allen
Mark Hutchison Scott Nowling
Sports Editor Photographer
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Warnken, Mark. The Allen American (Allen, Tex.), Vol. 21, No. 20, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 11, 1990, newspaper, March 11, 1990; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1571485/m1/2/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Allen Public Library.