To the Editor:

In May of 2011 friends and family held the first annual L. Wayne Strader Memorial Scholarship Fund fundraiser event in memory of my son, who died in January of that year.

Over the past five years we have raised $10,500 which was awarded to 17 local high school students to help pay their college tuition.

We have done all our advertising each year with North Country This Week, yet you would never publish the picture and article we sent to you in your paper. I personally came to your office in Potsdam last year and asked that it would be published so that many people and businesses would know that their contributions were actually being used to help these worthy students.

You also cut our thank you letter short that year, saying it was too long, yet I have seen letters in your paper taking up well over a full column.

I will never understand why a picture of an animal, cloud formation, a child playing, an unidentified iron worker working on the bridge, etc., takes precedent over these scholarship awards.

This year was our final year and you still would not publish the photo an article requested, in your paper, unless we paid for it.

Patricia Strader

Hannawa Falls