LETTERS: BOND IS WISE-USE ENVIRONMENTALIST

To the editor:

A letter to this newspaper Feb. 17 was brutally negative toward U.S. Sen. Kit Bond. I disagree. One can take issues and twist them around to make anyone look bad. Bond tries to find real answers to real problems. He has roots in Southeast Missouri and is sensitive to this area's needs.

The letter said Bond was at war with the environment. His actions certainly do not reflect this. The senator has acreage near Mexico, Mo., where he has been planting trees with this own two hands since 1986. Oak, walnut, chestnut and dogwoods thrive with a wide variety of grasses. He is currently working on a news erosion-control plan that calls for planting thousands of trees in Missouri. Bond was interested in a healthy environment before ecosystem was even a word.

Bond is not a tree-hugging environmentalist who denounces civilization and does not realize from where his comfortable lifestyle comes. Bond is a wise-use environmentalists who balances the needs of people with the resources of the earth. He is a man well worth your vote.

STAN PETZOLDT

Frohna