We published many letters during the month of October and most expressed a political view that will be decided today - Election Day.

The editorial board for The Southern Illinoisan appreciated all of those letters. But we also decided to eliminate election-oriented letters from consideration in the monthly competition for the Golden Pen Award, given monthly to the author of the best letter to the editor.

Here are the three letters that were chosen by the editorial board as finalists for the Golden Pen. Now it's your turn to pick the winning letter and author from the following three letters. The author receives an inscribed gold-colored pen, and public recognition of their achievement in a column written by the editor. The easiest way to vote is online at www.thesouthern.com/goldenpen. It also is possible to vote by mail by noting your favorite letter from this group and sending it to: Editor Gary Metro, The Southern Illinoisan, 710 N. Illinois Ave., Carbondale, IL 62901. Votes will be accepted through Friday, Nov. 14. The winning letter and author will be recognized before the end of the month.

Show some common courtesy

To the Editor:

This is to the person who hit my 4-year-old step-granddaughter's pet dog Thursday, Oct. 8. You left the dog to die in the ditch by her house where she could find her when she went out to play. I was at my stepdaughter's house when a neighbor came and told her that someone had hit the dog and left it in the ditch. You didn't even have the common courtesy to come and tell them you had hit the dog. In my book, you are an inconsiderate cad with no conscious. My stepdaughter had been raised with the dog and the dog was well-mannered and wouldn't hurt anyone. While we were there, she kept going to the door and calling her to come in for the night. It broke my heart to hear her call for a pet that wouldn't be coming home ever again. The next day, she called me to tell me some idiot had hit her dog and she's in heaven now. She was very upset and angry at the person who took her friend and playmate away. I doubt if you care, but the pet's name was Misty and she will be sadly missed by everyone who knew her.

Sue Barnhart, Buckner

Don't count on new trees

To the Editor:

The Bush administration announced a global warming initiative to plant on mined lands 38 million trees a year for three years. Don't count on Illinois yet, Illinois coal companies from 1930 to 1968 planted 18 million trees. Prime timber today are Sahara Woods near Harrisburg with our best stand of white oak, Black Diamond near Du Quoin also with apple and peach orchards, and forests and lakes of Pyramid State Park south of Pinckneyville that have been an environmental, educational and recreational boon. Federal and Illinois strip-mine regulations strong on control and weak on good reclamation ended successful tree planting in the 1970s. Illinois has failed to implement strip-mine laws properly. Much strip-mined land west of Harrisburg and north of Illinois 13, where forests are legally required to be replaced, now has fields being invaded by exotic autumn olive and cedars. By 2028 mined lands, now grassland from Pinckneyville to Sparta , will be the same. There are no forests; the soils now replaced in Southern Illinois have grown weeds, not trees. Forcing companies to replace four-foot of infertile, compacted, poorly-drained fragipan and claypan soils forfeits an irreplaceable opportunity to build better soils. Let reclamation specialists with needed skills enrich minesoils with fresh minerals for increased fertility, good drainage, and reduce reclamation costs now $30,000 an acre. Progressive mining states like Kentucky will plant the 38 million trees per year announced yesterday. The deforesting of Illinois by IDNR has no end in sight.

Clark Ashby, Carbondale

Historic structure should be saved

To the Editor:

Where are the voices of historic preservation in Carbondale? The First Baptist Church on Main Street, listed in the Inventory of Historic Landmarks in Jackson County by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in 1974, has been sold to Southern Illinois Healthcare and faces an uncertain future. This 106-year-old structure dates back to the beginning of Carbondale. Its site was platted with the city in 1852. It is crafted of native sandstone, the same stone that appears in geological formations throughout the Southern Illinois landscape. I am not aware of any public outcry over the fate of this building since the hospital purchase was announced last year, but plenty has been said about less important structures, including the Old Freight Depot and the Varsity theater, over the years. Merely saving the windows, some furniture and other relics for a new church building on Giant City Road cannot replace the honesty and integrity of these design elements in the historic context of their original environment. The relationship of the parts to the whole will have been destroyed. While I realize that a church is really its congregation, I also realize that a church building is a symbol of that congregation and all that it stands for. In the absence of any outcry from arts aficionados, preservation architects, historians, the city or the university, let us hope that Southern Illinois Healthcare will have the imagination to adapt and re-use this important structure. If they do, it will be an affirmation of the past, the present, as well as the future. Destroying this important structure should not be an option.

Richard Helstern, Carbondale