10 Years Ago
Week of May 8, 2014
NFES Chosen
To Represent WV
In Story Box Project
Cindy Wilkins, second grade teacher, and North Fork Elementary School in Circleville have been chosen to represent West Virginia as the recipients of the children’s Poetry Story Box.
After its time at NFES, Wilkins will ship the Poetry Story Box with North Fork’s students’ poems in it, on to the next location in Wisconsin, where children will have the opportunity to complete poems and contribute them to the collection. The box will continue to travel across the United States until its return to Columbus, OH, in 2015.
Gardening Tips…
by Pendleton County Master Gardeners
Garden tools, like other equipment, will last a lot longer and do a better job if one properly maintains them. Keep cutting tools sharp, don’t let them rust; and sensibly store them.
Dead head (remove) spent flowers from bulbs.
Pruning is necessary for many plants just before or at the beginning of the growing season. Prune early blooming plants such as viburnum and forsythia once the blooms pass. Pruning roses in early spring is the ideal.
Get rid of weeds by hand weeding, hoeing, mulching and/or the use of weed killers.
Spring is a good time to start a compost bin if one doesn’t have one. Composting consists of piling up grass clippings, leaves and other garden debris plus vegetable waste from the kitchen and permitting it to decompose.
Plant new plants in the spring but be sure that all the threat of frost has passed. Plant trees, shrubs, hardy annuals and summer blooming bulbs.
Stake young trees or flowering plants to avoid them being beaten down by a sudden storm or collapse under their own weight.
Lawn care begins again each spring. Spring is the perfect time to start a new lawn. If one has an established lawn, one needs to start mowing in the spring. Avoid cutting the lawn too short too soon.
20 Years Ago
Week of April 29, 2004
Don’t Let Television
Educate the Children
In spite of your best efforts, your child will see and hear many “mixed messages” about drinking alcohol through advertising, television programs and movies. Estimates are that children will see over 75,000 drinking scenes before they turn 18 but they probably still won’t know much about alcoholic beverages or the serious health problems that they can cause. Most children do not understand that standard servings or distilled spirits, wine, beer and wine coolers all contain the same amount of alcohol. Explain that wine coolers or beer often consumed by minors—can get you just as drunk as so-called “hard” liquor and do the same damage to the body.
Continue to educate your child about the importance of maintaining good health— psychological, emotional and physical. You can be your child’s best teacher. Even if your child’s school offers an alcohol and drug education curriculum, your child needs consistent information and support at home as well as in school. Your willingness to listen to your children’s problems and feelings will help them develop a sense of confidence in themselves. It will help them develop the coping skills they need for dealing with anger, stress, loneliness and disappointment without turning to alcohol.
Children do pressure others their own age to drink. Your child needs to know that he or she doesn’t have to do something—including drinking—just because they think “everybody is doing it.” Preteens often believe that more kids their own age drink than who actually do. Helping your child learn that he or she can make their own decision—about clothes, sports or other activities they enjoy—even if “everyone else isn’t doing it” will help him or her in making the decision not to drink.
Week of May 6, 2004
Four WV Colleges To Be Renamed as Universities
Gov. Bob Wise has signed into law S. B. 448, relating to community and technical colleges.
“The fundamental mission of West Virginia’s community and technical college system is to meet the education and training needs of our state’s businesses and our workforce,” Wise said. “This bill gives colleges the independence and authority they need to fulfill this very important mission for the benefit of all West Virginians. This bill establishes a separate governing system for community and technical colleges, allowing them “a genuine opportunity to grow and succeed.”
This bill allows Concord, Fairmont, Shepherd, and West Virginia State colleges to rename themselves as universities.
30 Years Ago
Week of May 12, 1994
Naval Unit
At Sugar Grove
‘Adopts’ Local
Nursing Home
Naval Security Group Activities, Sugar Grove, has joined forces with Pendleton Nursing Home in Franklin to help raise the quality of life of the home’s residents. In a colorful outdoor ceremony on the nursing home’s back lawn Monday afternoon, the Naval Security Group Activities “adopted” the nursing home.
Week of May 19, 1994
Trail Ride to Help
CHS Football Team
By Joan Ashley
Circleville School’s gridiron will receive support from stirrup irons come next Sunday when horseback riders mount up for the annual football benefit trail ride.
Leaving Circleville School at 10 a.m., the riders will pass the old grist mill that ground wheat and corn in the 1890’s and climb to the top of North Mountain passing abandoned turn of the century farms on winding trails dressed in magnificent spring foliage. They will descend into Teter Gap on a path overlooking a sensational view of Goshen.
Returning to the school in roughly three to four hours, the riders will cover about 20 miles of thrilling scenic trails sporting spectacular views.
Organized each year by Coach Charles Teter, the ride benefits the Circleville football team and will help provide new helmets and jerseys along with other equipment this year.
40 Years Ago
Week of May 17, 1984
137 Pendleton, Highland Youngsters
Playing T-Ball
The 1984 T-Ball season is beginning its sixth year of the countywide program provided by the Pendleton County Recreation Department for youngsters of Pendleton and Highland counties. A total of 137 children are participating in the league games on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon.
Attendance at Franklin Pool Increased Last Year
Last spring the Franklin swimming pool had a welcomed and worthwhile facelift. The patrons of the pool enjoyed a newly painted pool with racing lanes and a beautifully painted wall with cartoon characters for the baby pool area drawn by Jane Echols’ Franklin High School art class.
Recreation director Frisky Lambert reports the pool’s attendance has been climbing each year as a result of the support of patrons from the town and county, excellent employees working at the pool, and co-operating weather.
“Last summer our attendance hit 100 or more people in 65 of the 100 days the pool was open,” Mrs. Lambert said. “We have great support from the town parents and children and also enjoyed the increased support from the Upper Tract and Brandywine areas.”
70 Years Ago
Week of May 13, 1954
County Woman
In Oklahoma Tornado
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert M. Rankin of Shawnee, Oklahoma, was completely demolished, and their four-year-old daughter, Linda, was seriously injured by a tornado that swept through a section of Oklahoma on May 1, according to a story appearing in the Hagerstown, Md., Daily Mail. Mrs. Rankin is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Smith of Ruddle.
Also injured were Mr. and Mrs. Dick Kimmel and their eight-month-old child, who were staying at the Rankin home at the time of the storm. The extent of the injuries to the three members of the Kimmel family was not known. Little Linda Rankin sustained a broken hip.
Mrs. Rankin was still in the hospital at Shawnee with a new daughter, Joan Marie, born on April 27, when the storm struck the Oklahoma town. Mr. Rankin, who is employed by the Jonco Aircraft Corp., at Shawnee, was at work at the time and also escaped injury.
According to the Daily Mail story the Rankin home and all the contents were completely destroyed in the tornado.
Slow Down Please – – –
By Trooper
- G. Cunningham
The American public has begun to awaken to the need of reducing the total of lives lost each year upon our highways. In 1953, a total of 38,300 were killed and 1,350,000 injured with property damage of $1,600,000,000. Just think of these figures for a minute and then realize that each death and each injury need not have happened. Is it not high time that the American public became aware of this useless carnage upon our highways? Is it not time for drastic action?
One does not have to study safety long ere it becomes clear just what is causing these deaths and injuries. It is no secret. Statistics compiled by the National Safety Council have put the finger on the cause . . . speed . . . in about 53% of all fatal accidents speed was the contributing factor. By speed I mean traveling faster than existing conditions safely permit. The two deaths in Pendleton County last year were caused by speed.
Yet with all the clamor for a reduction in our traffic toll, I for one hold little hope for more than a token reduction as a result of any organized drive. My reason for this assumption is simply public reaction. In other words we know that speed is the killer and we know that the speeding driver comes from all age groups, from all walks of life, and is, in short, the average driver who, if stopped for speeding by a police officer, will defend by excuse and alibi the speed which he was traveling. He is quick to point out that he is no criminal and recites a long record of safe driving, adding the names of several officers who are close friends. In short, it has become the American driver’s nature to try and talk his way out of a traffic violation. This procedure has become as American as baseball, as universal as ham and eggs. Should he fail to talk his way out, the driver usually takes the officer’s summons and drives away mentally cursing the arresting officer as a bully and tyrant.
Then let us look at another aspect of speed. In 1954, 15 out of 18 leading car manufacturers increased the horsepower output of their products an average of 17 horsepower over the 1953 models and an increase in horsepower can but mean an increase in the speed at which the vehicle will travel. Also the newer models have all but eliminated outside “road noise” and are marvels of scientific research and construction with the emphasis on luxury rather than safety. Thus the manufacturer has increased the potential death toll on our highways for 1954. The driver of a new car has little sense of speed as he sits encased in the latest marvels of science. The sensation of driving 80 miles per hour is practically the same as when driving 40 miles per hour. One has to glance at the speedometer before speed can be accurately determined. Yet the manufacturers are but catering to the demand of the buying public. So we see each new model is designed to make greater speed and such speed is increasingly hard for the driver to distinguish in his vehicle. Then what is the answer?
Experts in the field of safety stress: (1) More rigid enforcement of traffic laws and revision of existing laws into uniform code throughout the nation. (2) Public education, through the safety talks, speeches, and driver education classes taught in our high schools. (3) Some help will come in the construction of better roads and the elimination of many existing hazards. (4) In time the manufacturer will by public demand, stress the safety features of his product even to the point of decreasing the horsepower but I feel that none of these measures will meet with much success until the driving public has been aroused to the point that each driver becomes aware of his own bad driving habits. Bad driving habits such as failure to dim lights when within 500 feet of an approaching vehicle, failure to dim lights when following another vehicle, following vehicles too closely, failure to sound the horn when passing, failure to keep right of center lines on curves and crest of hills, drinking and driving.
All these bad habits plus the universal urge to speed is in my opinion responsible for the terrific toll of lives on highways each year. Therefore, safety must start with each individual driver checking himself against the bad driving habits as listed above undergoing a “mental reform,” remembering that the basic rules for safe driving are caution, courtesy, and common sense. REMEMBER, THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN.
