Two totally separate issues have become wrongly intertwined and twisted into an incorrect association. I am referring to the "association" made by Jay Bienvenu's letter to the editor ("Indbox: In Defense of Dr. Authement," July 26) between the SavetheHorseFarm.com volunteer group and Rebecca Watson ("Indbox: That Little Tin-Horn Despot" July 12).
To the best of our collective memory, we have no knowledge of Rebecca Watson doing any volunteer work for our SavetheHorseFarm group. I have tried to contact her to confirm her lack of connection with SavetheHorseFarm but have not been successful. In fact, Watson never mentions or implies anything about our SavetheHorseFarm group in her diatribe about how she feels Dr. Authement treats university personnel. Furthermore, in a close context reading of "That Little Tin-Horn Despot," it is clear she is referring to the university (not the UL former Equine Center property) when she writes: "This could be such a lovely little garden of free thought and beauty."
In his letter, although Bienvenu appears to equate SavetheHorseFarm efforts (to save the last naturally beautiful 100 acres in the center of Lafayette) with Watson's cry of "bring him down" (i.e., Dr. Authement), no such equivalence exists. Many of the hardest working volunteers in the SavetheHorseFarm group are proud (myself included) alumni of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and we acknowledge the great benefits that the university and the city of Lafayette have derived from having Dr. Ray Authement at the helm of our university for over 30 years.
The issues of saving the horse farm for use as Lafayette's future nature-oriented (and peaceful) park are not over yet and still need public support and financial donations for its purchase. We, of the SavetheHorseFarm.com group, are not trying in any way to remove Dr. Authement.