Sign needs to come down

Dear editor,

Soon after moving here from Vermont two years ago, one of my first exercise walks took me past Hacker Middle School. I was dismayed to see not one but two signs on the school building featuring the logo of the Coca-Cola company.

A more recent walk led me by the school once again and prompted me to write this letter. I object to a public school building being used in this manner -- as a site for a commercial company's advertising.

Several issues spring out here. These billboard-like signs imply endorsement of the Coca-Cola product by the school district. Additionally, beverages such as Coca-Cola are very bad for young, developing people to consume.

School districts across our country have pulled sugar-based beverages from in-school vending machines for this reason.

Rightly or wrongly, the presence of these signs on the facade of a public school building is wrong. Surely, School District 193 does not endorse Coca-Cola. Yet, a lay person might easily perceive that to the be the case.

These signs should be removed. The Coca-Cola company, no doubt, gave the school district something, (money perhaps?) in return for allowing its logo to be posted on the facade of a school building. But that does not make it right.

Thank you for listening.

-- Alan Gregory,

Mountain Home