A Letter to the Editor

This is now my second letter written and delivered to the editor of the local daily newspaper, the first having been written around 10 years ago concerning a school controversy. The current controversy is about what time should be observed in Daviess County, Indiana. The Indiana legislature narrowly passed (by one vote) a bill stating that the state will henceforth observe Daylight Savings Time like normal people. The governor is leaving it up to individual counties to petition the federal government if they want to be reassigned to a different time zone. Daviess County, like most in the state, is in the Eastern time zone. The county commissioners think Central time is a better choice for us. The editorial staff of the newspaper concurs with that position with one dissenting opinion. Thus the letter. By way of explanation, the locations mentioned are Crane Naval Base (employs around 4000 people about 12 miles east of my home), Bedford (small city 35 miles east), Bloomington (larger city 45 miles northeast), Indianapolis (state capital and largest city in the state 80 miles northeast), Evansville (large city 65 miles to the south which is in the central time zone), and Chicago, Illinois (very large city 250 miles northwest and also on central time).

The likelihood of my letter making any difference is small, but the urge to respond publicly to what is being thrust upon us finally became strong enough to send me to my keyboard.

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To the editor:

As a North Daviess resident, I greatly appreciated Shannon Graber's opinion piece on the time change. Personally, I'm more concerned with being on the same time as Crane, Bedford, Bloomington, and Indianapolis than with Evansville or Chicago.

We could split the county in discussing our economic ties, but perhaps it would make the choice more obvious if we considered the sun. We have been blessed during our decades of observing year-round Eastern Standard Time (EST). The sun is always up by a few minutes after 8 a.m. and never sets more than a few minutes before 5:30 p.m. At the other extreme, the earliest summer sunrise is around 5:30 a.m. and the latest sunset around 8:15 p.m. Unfortunately, in order to be like everyone else, we either have to give up some morning time or some evening time. Daylight "savings" time is going to cost us some daylight somewhere.

When we don't change time, we have around 3 months of the sun rising between 7:30 and 8 a.m. and 3 months of the sun setting between 5:30 and 6 p.m. If we choose Eastern Daylight Savings Time (EDT), we will add around five weeks of late (after 7:30) sunrises in the early fall in exchange for longer summer evenings. (The spring time change will come after the sun already rises by 7:30 even on EDT.)

On the other hand, if we choose Central Daylight Savings Time (CDT), we will go from three months of sunsets before 6 p.m. to five months! And from the time change in the fall until the end of January the sun will set between 4:30 and 5 p.m. People who work until 5 will go three months without any after-work daylight hours! Every 7 pm activity between the October time change and the middle of March will be at least an hour after sunset. Ask some of your Evansville friends about those dark days of winter.

I realize that Daylight Savings Time for Indiana is more about being like our neighbors than saving any daylight, but I for one hope we don't give up our already-short winter afternoons in order to be like our neighbors to the south and west rather than those to the north and east.

Marsha Lynn

Odon