Dear Editor,
On this beautiful Sunday afternoon my husband and I went to the zoo at 4:32. 
I was very upset to find that it was closed. 
The employee inside stated, “Our hours are until 4:30. We are city ran and they will not pay us after those hours. Everyone must be out by 5:00.”  As a tax paying citizen of Barton County I feel that our city zoo should have longer hours. 
The sun doesn’t set until later in the evening and therefore as a citizen of Great Bend I should have the privilege to use our public zoo until then. 
I had no problem entering our zoo until the city chose to erect a building designating “official hours.” 
I have a problem with this. 
It benefits the population of our city greatly having longer zoo hours. 
The exercise that we receive along with the energy saved by turning off our televisions is tremendous compared to the employees’ hourly paid for a few more hours.
Jessica Grigoreva,
Great Bend