10 Years Ago Week of December 8, 2015
FES Honors 54 Students For Test Scores
Parents and students packed the cafeteria at Franklin Elementary School at last week’s Pendleton County Board of Education meeting. Rick Linaburg joked that he needed a bigger school for gatherings as large as the one assembled Tuesday evening. Linaburg welcomed parents and guests to the awards ceremony in which students excelling on the West Virginia Summative Assessment tests during the spring of 2015 were recognized.
Fifty-four FES students were recently honored for meeting or exceeding scores on last spring’s assessment tests.
SUGAR GROVE
College Students Lived by a Different Set of Rules
Shenandoah College and Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, Dayton, VA, was an institution where many from Pendleton County once attended. The college church hosted many a concert with music resounding for its audience on many occasions throughout the school year, before moving to Winchester, VA, in 1974.
Times have certainly changed from those college days. When looking at the house rules prior to the 1960s, times have certainly changed! Take for instance:
•College freshmen had to be in their dorms Sunday through Friday by 9:00 p.m.
•College sophomores were to be in their dorms by 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Friday.
•College juniors were allowed to stay out every night until 10 p.m. Sunday through Friday.
•All students needed to be in by 10:30 p.m on Saturday nights.
•No dates were permitted when scheduled events were taking place.
•Boys were allowed in the dormitory parlors on Monday through Friday after evening meals until 9:00 p.m., Saturday noon until 10:30 p.m. and Sunday noon until 9:00 p.m.
•No girl was to visit in the men’s dormitory at any time.
•Playing any musical instrument in the dormitory or typing was prohibited after 11:00 p.m.
•Pets were not allowed in any dormitory.
20 Years Ago Week of December 8, 2005
SUGAR GROVE
Silent Majority Needs To Take a Stand
Whether to greet one another with “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” is being kicked around. Little by little one’s embedded culture is being whittled away. What will go next? The religious stamps, singing of Christmas carols, Christmas decorations (trees and lights)? Easter celebrations? Halloween fun? Where will it stop, or will it ever? The Australian government has taken a stand. They basically have said that people, who don’t want to be Australians, and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically “clear off.” They have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices what they want.
The writer would like to suggest that it is because of this country’s values and embedded culture that one has become such a great nation. So great, that peoples from every nation desire to live here. Then why would one, as a nation, wish to become “generic”? Perhaps it is time for the silent majority to seek a leader, to lobby for American rights and be heard. That ever popular talk show host, Paul Harvey, has expressed the silent majority’s concerns so well.
“I don’t believe in Santa Clause, but I’m not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December. I don’t agree with Darwin, but I didn’t go out and hire a lawyer when my high school teacher taught his theory of evolution.
Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game.
So, what’s the big deal? It’s not like somebody is up there reading the entire book of Acts. They’re just talking to a God they believe in and asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game.”
‘But it’s a Christian prayer,’ some will argue.
Yes, and this is the United States of America, a country founded on Christian principles. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1. So what would you expect, someone chanting the Hare Krishna?
If I went to a football game in Jerusalem, I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer.
If I went to a soccer game in Baghdad, I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer.
If I went to a ping pong match in China, I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha.
And I wouldn’t be offended. It wouldn’t bother me one bit. When in Rome…”
30 Years Ago Week of December 7, 1995
County Deer Kill Rises to 2,553
Another 312 bucks were killed in Pendleton County last week which added to the 2,241 killed the week before which brings the total buck kill in Pendleton County during the two weeks of bucks only hunting this year to 2,553.
Hunters continue to lament the scarcity of bucks and abundance of does roaming the woods this year, but no doubt there will be fewer does around this week when a three-day antler-less season will be in effect Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
40 Years Ago Week of December 12, 1985
Family Dollar To Open Store Here
CHARLOTTE, N. C. — Family Dollar’s 1000th Store Grand Opening Celebration which began on November 21, 1985, with 976 stores open, has surpassed the plan to have 1000 stores in operation prior to December 25, 1985. With 28 additional stores opening through December 15 and today’s announcement of seven more scheduled to open December 19 and 20, Family Dollar will now have a total of 1,011 stores!
One of the stores opening Thursday, December 19, is in Franklin and is Family Dollar’s 39th West Virginia store. It is located in Franklin Shopping Plaza next to Payles Supermarket off U.S. 33-220. It will open at 10 a.m.
Family Dollar was founded in 1959 with a single store in Charlotte, N. C., and on December 20 will have more than 6,440,513 square feet of total sales space and 1011 stores. The company presently operates in 22 states.
Big Bubble Is Shelter For Property
Clothing, furniture and household items which have been donated to area flood victims are being stored and distributed from a huge bubble building located on school property back of Franklin High School.
Made of reinforced plastic material, the structure is 325 feet long, 125 feet wide and 37 feet high. It has no rigid supports but maintains its shape by air pressure forced into the canopy by seven four-foot diameter fans. The fans operate automatically and one or more turns on as air pressure in the structure requires.
The bubble building, valued at a quarter million dollars, was donated to the county by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and Monongahela Power Company donated 150 five-foot anchors to hold the building in place.
DAHMER
Eddie Warner with the Department of Agriculture placed bait traps over Pendleton to check on the gypsy moth. His bait boxes trapped between 50 and 60 male gypsy moths in about all parts of Pendleton County. None were trapped on Spruce Knob.
There was an old superstition when a new baby arrived, the parents would take the baby and place its hand on something they wanted it to be when it grew up. For example, the writer knows of one couple that placed their son’s hand on an ax handle. Now, if this were possible, the writer is wondering on what Robert and Kathy Propst will place their son’s Chad Nathaniel’s hand?
Roscoe Johnson and others were checking in this area for pine blister rust. Gooseberries are alternate hosts by which the rust spreads. After recovering from the Great Depression, a work project for the gooseberry bushes was locally called the gooseberry gang. This gang placed twine strings in order to tell what area they were to work. In those days money was scarce and many a boy or girl or even older people would go wrap the strings up into balls. One day Virginia (Propst) Killander was busy wrapping up the string when she caught up with the many putting out the twine. She dropped the twine and later remarked, “Boy, did I run!”
50 Years Ago Week of December 11, 1975
DAHMER
This season more smoke can be seen curling up from chimneys than last year, which means more folks are using wood to keep expenses down. Maybe this is a way to help Santa Claus bring presents to good girls and boys.
Due to not many children in this community, there has been no Christmas program here for several years. Someone got the bright idea to have Mt. Zion and St. Luke churches to have a combined Christmas program at St. Luke on Thursday, December 25 at 7:00 p.m. The Christmas spirit is being rekindled and an excellent program is anticipated.
60 Years Ago Week of December 9, 1965
1400 Report For Labor Interviews Over Weekend
More than 1,400 persons were interviewed in Franklin during the past weekend by executives of a firm considering Pendleton County as a site for the construction of a plant in their expansion program.
The interviews were conducted in the courthouse in Franklin by the president, vice president, and three other executives of the firm, assisted by a representative of the West Virginia Department of Commerce and several members of Pendleton Industries, Inc.
More than 600 persons reported for interviews Sunday, 475 Saturday, and 340 on Friday.
Company officials were of the opinion that a decision on the plant location would be made by the first of the year.
70 Years Ago Week of December 8, 1955
Charleston Man Gets Prize 28-Point Buck
One of the finest trophy kills reported in the county was a 28-point buck killed by L. W. Cobb, 36, of Charleston.
Cobb, who was spending the week with Elmer Propst of Brandywine, killed the big fellow on the South Fork. He said he saw it last year while hunting there and shot at it three times but missed it. Since then he has had his 30.06 gun barrel turned down and his sights adjusted so he was ready for him this year.
“He was old and poor,” Cobb said, “but he was unusually large. I would estimate his weight at about 200 pounds.”
Cobb said he had hunted all over West Virginia but he liked Pendleton County best. “I like Pendleton County squirrel hunting too,” Cobb added. “I was here four days during the season and got my limit.”
EDITORIALS
Our Band Needs A Boost
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Our Pendleton County schools have produced many groups, individuals and organizations in recent years of which we have been very proud. One of the organizations which has proved to be exceptionally successful and popular is the Franklin School Band. As proof of its popularity, it frequently has been demonstrated that the best way to get a large crowd at any public gathering is to announce that the Franklin Band will play. It never fails to pack them in.
We sometimes forget, however, that these groups, no matter how outstanding, need the support of our citizens. Providing a good band requires more than simply teaching several youngsters to play a horn. The members of the band need instruments, they need uniforms and if they are to participate in events outside the county, they need transportation facilities.
Members of the Franklin Band have not had new uniforms for ten years. Their present uniforms have been patched and darned so many times that the boys and girls have become ashamed to be seen in them. The band has had opportunities to play at several celebrations recently, but they have had great difficulty in obtaining transportation facilities and the youngsters have been reluctant to play because of their appearance.
The band has meant a great deal to the citizens of the county. They are always ready and willing to play for local celebrations and gatherings and they play well. Walter Judy has done an excellent job in developing a band of which we can be proud. But they have come to the place where they are now in need of assistance.
