10 Years Ago
Week of August 13, 2015
Volleyball Approved For Middle School
The Pendleton County Board of Education met last Tuesday evening at the annex. The first item of business was a presentation by Bill Kile of Petersburg. Kile is a former educator and co-worker of school superintendent Douglas Lambert. Kile presented Lambert with a certificate of appreciation from the American Legion.
Following Kile’s presentation, Pendleton County Middle/High School principal, Lori Moore, and athletic director, Sam Yokum, offered a proposal for the formation of a middle school volleyball team, Moore stated significant interest from both students and parents, as well as, Cathy Bennett, high school volleyball coach, as the basis for the proposal.
SUGAR GROVE
‘You Can’t Take the Mountains Out of Us’
They say that it’s all about family. It’s all about connections. It’s about heritage…reunions. There appears to be a bunch of them going on in the summer in these parts. Summers used to be times when cousins developed a deep fondness for the area. Cousins grew close to a brace of other cousins. As one reunion attendee commented, “You can take us out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountains out of us.” A typical family reunion will assemble grandparents, great-grandparents and up for a meal, recreation and discussion. Sometimes these reunions are held regularly, for example, on the same date every year.
At school reunions, former teachers were invited. Classmates reminisce about their school days and bring each other up to date on what has happened since they went their separate ways. The best idea for reunions is to have one. Society is in need of slowing down and focusing on the really important things in life, like family and friends.
Reunions were born in part because so many in the area were forced to leave because of the decline in the work force. World War II had broadened the horizon. In the seven decades after World War II, more than three million people left the mountains looking for work.
As a result, folks were taught to cherish even distant family connections, and quite naturally, the migrants did not forget their roots, returning yearly to the mountain hollows for the family gatherings. But their children are not at all interested in their heritage. So much of the clan is scattered in so many different directions. In so much as a few words, the youngsters are no longer Appalachians. They have become Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, DC’ers, etc.
The decline in the reunion attendance is a sign that the Appalachian culture, which is based on the importance of family, may be fading. By having reunions, the tradition of family history continues on for future generations. Other things may change, but by having reunions, the family remains constant and strong.
20 Years Ago
Week of August 11, 2005
Michael, Helmick Obtain $70,000 For Purchase of Life-Saving Equipment
Seventy-thousand dollars worth of funding for needed equipment for the Pendleton County Emergency Rescue Squad and the Pendleton County Rescue Team was obtained by Delegate Harold K. Michael and Senator Walt Helmick.
Last Wednesday afternoon at the courthouse, Delegate Michael presented two checks, one in the amount of $45,000 for the county rescue squads, the other in the amount of $25,000 for the rescue team.
The rescue squad money will be used to purchase external defibrillators, pediatric electrodes and materials to be used for training volunteers in the use of the new, potentially life-saving equipment.
The $25,000 will be used by the rescue teams to purchase rescue ropes, repelling gear, rope rescue hardware, a rescue line gun, new baskets and slings and swift water rescue gear.
50 Years Ago
Week of July 31, 1975
Swimming Is Popular Among All Age Groups
Everyone’s taking the plunge these days.
Swimming for fun is making a big splash with everyone from tots to septuagenarians.
In some cities infants are in the pool when they are five months old. Members of the diaper set, each accompanied by a parent, take six-week courses that teach them to stay afloat.
“Most babies like to float on their tummies,” says a YWCA swim instructor in Washington, D. C. “When you find one that likes to back float, you probably have a natural back-stroker.”
Taught by Animals
No one knows exactly when or how man first took to the water. Pioneer swimmers initially may have braved the waves in search of seafood. They probably imitated the swimming motions of aquatic animals.
The earliest pictorial record of swimmers depicts Assyrian soldiers using inflated animal bladders as water wings to cross a stream in the 9th century B.C.
Mosaics unearthed at Pompeii show men doing a sort of dog paddle. Julius Caesar could swim, and the skill saved his life during a shipwreck.
The Japanese staged swimming competitions as early as 36 B.C. The sport remained popular and became part of Japan’s official school curriculum in 1603.
But swimming in medieval Europe was forbidden. People thought it helped spread many of the epidemics that periodically scourged the continent.
The sport finally caught on in the 19th century, mainly in England. At first, the English did relatively slow breast or side strokes, but competition later encouraged speed. In 1844 some North American Indians race in a London pool. The winner, Flying Gull, splashed 130 feet in 30 seconds.
Flailed Like Windmills
The Indians, said a London observer, “thrashed the water violently with their arms, like sails of a windmill, and beat downward with their feet, blowing with force and forming grotesque antics.”
Years later an English swimming teacher named Arthur Trudgen popularized an early version of the same stroke, after observing it on a trip to South America. The crawl with scissors kick became known in Europe as the “trudgen.” But natives of Africa, the South Pacific, and North and South America had been doing it for years.
Swimming strokes were modernized much faster than bathing suits. Topless male swimmers were frowned upon in the United States until the 1930s.
President Theodore Roosevelt regularly shunned convention by stealing off to skinny dip in the Potomac. On one outing his companion, the French ambassador, forgot to remove his gloves before taking the plunge. “I think I’ll leave them on,” he said. “We might meet ladies.”
Week of August 14, 1975
Boys & Girls Clean 4,501 Bags Litter From Local Rivers
Pendleton County’s streams, river banks and adjacent roadways are cleaner as a result of work done this summer by county youth in the Governor’s Summer Youth Program.
Hundreds of bags of trash and debris which littered stream beds and adjacent areas throughout the county have been picked up by youth involved in the program and hauled away in Department of Highways trucks.
A total of 50 students were employed in the program and they covered 224 miles of streams. They filled 99 trucks with 4,501 bags of litter, 59 old appliances, an automobile and 325 tires.
Crew leaders were Galen Warner, Bill McQuain and Beverly Hevener on the South Fork and Orville Harper, Charles Teter and Sandy Bodkin on the North Fork.
Work crews started working June 16 with three crews working the North Fork streams and three crews working the South Branch and South Fork streams.
The crews worked through last week on the following streams: North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac, Big Run, Dry Run, Teter Gap Run, Pike Gap Run, Bennett Gap Run, Moyers Gap Run, Smith Creek, South Fork of South Branch of Potomac and other smaller streams and creeks.
The Pendleton County Department of Highways assisted with the program by picking up litter and disposing of it. The board of education assisted by providing transportation for boys and girls.
Youth involved in the program gained educational experience as a result of their work and received approximately 60 hours of counseling and other educational benefits.
According to John C. Hammer, chairman of the program, many citizens in Pendleton County have expressed an interest in keeping our county clean. “This is one of the reasons for the River and Stream Improvement Program in Pendleton County this year,” Hammer stated.
Five Courses Added To FHS Curriculum
In an effort to better meet the needs of the students of Franklin High School, five new courses will be offered during the 1975-76 school year.
The new courses will include speech, drama, business math, business English and government.
“We feel that these courses will benefit many students, and we are looking forward to expanding the curriculum even more in the coming years,” said school principal Virgil Puffenbarger.
Work Underway Here On New Store
Construction on a new $160,000 super market is well underway in the Franklin Plaza on Dahmer Heights in north Franklin.
The 82’x122’ building is being built by Glover’s Pic-Pac, Inc., Barry Glover, manager, and will be known as Pic-Pac Super Market.
When completed, about the first of October, it will offer a complete line of Hyde-Park groceries, meats and produce in its 7,500 sq. ft. sales and display area.
The total 10,004 sq. ft. building is expected to employ between twelve and fifteen people.
The construction is under contract to Warren R. Waggy and Company of Franklin and will be 3,000 sq. ft. larger than the adjacent Ben Franklin.
80 Years Ago
Week of August 10, 1945
MOUTH OF SENECA
We are having fine rains here every few days, which spells fine growing weather and is promising us a fine corn crop on North Fork, but is greatly retarding the progress of hay making in the hill sections. Farmers are done on the river.
Owen and Hubert Raines of Riverton stopped here Saturday on their way to Durbin with a load of peaches and tomatoes.
Mr. and Mrs. Kenny Bennett stopped here with a load of locust timber that they were trucking to the Franklin pin mill.
Jake Panter of Harman came in Saturday and had his flour and feed bins replenished.
Sam Warner and sons of Bland Hills are assisting Walter Dolly in his hay making and he thinks his crop will reach ninety stacks this year.
—Yours Katinka
EXCELLENT ENTERTAINMENT IS BOOKED FOR TRI-COUNTY FAIR
Featured in the grandstand program at the “Tri-County Fair at Petersburg on August 22, 23 and 24 will be a series of acts furnished by the Gus Sun Booking Agency, including Homer Meachum and his Kentucky Ramblers. This outfit comes highly recommended as a hillbilly combination and will be supported by several other fine acts including Fergerson’s Toy Town Terriers, Carl Thornson, the jesting juggler, and other standard acts. These acts will appear on the afternoon and night programs.
Each night several classes of saddle horses will be shown. On Wednesday night the ladies, junior and pony classes will be shown. The Thursday night classes will consist of the walking horses shown in three classes—the plantation class, the all-day class, and the walking class. Friday night the three gaited, five gaited and harness horses will show. Petersburg business men have added more than one hundred dollars worth of fine riding equipment to be awarded the winners of each of the classes. Mrs. Helen Horst of Hagerstown, Md., will judge all classes of horses.
Residents of the Tri-County area are urged to carefully select and prepare exhibits for this year’s fair. Last year the exhibits were much below normal and the officials of the association hope those interested in the development of the Tri-County Fair will not let this happen again. With a good crop and livestock in good shape, this year’s exhibition should approach normal.
