20 Years Ago
Week of April 1, 2004
Hartman Wins Cadillac SUV in OnStar Contest
What are the odds of two people from Rockingham County winning grand prizes in a national promotion? Toss in a third winner from just across the mountain and rework the numbers.
The odds of winning General Motors Corporation’s Hot Button contest were one in 5,500. Casey Hartman of Dayton, VA, (formerly of Franklin), Karen Dearing of Elkton, VA, and Thomas Lawson of Standardsville, VA, beat the odds and will take possession of new vehicles within weeks.
Hartman won a 2004 Cadillac Escalade EXT, which converts from a pickup to an SUV, and carries a $56,000 price tag.
Dearing won a 2004 GMC Envoy SLT, priced at $43,000.
Lawson will ride off in a new Chevrolet Trailblazer, which sells for $31,600.
The promotion requires a person to come to a dealership and press the OnStar button in a GM vehicle. Then the operator connects the person to a contest operator who tells the contestant if he or she won a new GM vehicle.
Parents, Monitor Child’s TV and Internet Viewing
By Donna Kuhn
Your child sees commercials for it on TV. There are sites about it on the Internet. She/he even sees you use it.
If you think your child is too young to be drinking alcohol, consider this: research shows that about 10 million Americans between ages 12 to 20 years had at least one drink last month. Initiation of alcohol use can begin as early as age 10. Alcohol is the drug most abused among youth, and it often acts as a gateway drug to tobacco, marijuana and other illicit drug use.
30 Years Ago
Week of March 24, 1994
Naval Base to Adopt
Local Nursing Home
The Naval Security Group Activity (NSGA) Sugar Grove will adopt the Pendleton Nursing Home in Franklin during ceremonies on May 9. The commanding officer of NSGA Sugar Grove, CDR Wayne K. Evers, in a continuing community involvement program, will join forces with Pendleton Nursing Home Administrator Camilla Mounts in raising the quality of life of the home’s residents.
SUGAR GROVE
Grandma’s Apron Holds Priceless Memories
Grandmother’s apron sure got around. There were positive identifications…freshly washed, starched, ironed, and of course seldom without! On the right side there was a deep pocket — to stash away things characteristic of its owner. Small change would be there, a hanky to wipe away a tear; rewards for grandchildren who were good girls and boys. Then, too, the big bow tied in the back resembled a butterfly lighting there awhile. There were many uses for her apron. It became an umbrella…her sunshade…fly swatter. Babies listening to lullabies would snuggle in it. An apron full of vegetables would often serve the purpose if a basket was not handy. Shooing mother hens along with her apron was not uncommon. Neither was picking a bouquet of flowers into her apron to be displayed in a stone pitcher when company arrived. Of course all the delicious fixings at mealtime called for Grandma to occasionally wipe her hands on her apron too. When bedtime finally arrived, Grandma would neatly hang her apron on the door — to don it again early in the morning. Priceless memories…that apron of Grandma’s.
Week of March 31, 1994
20 Mile Run
To Help Eliminate
Poverty Housing
On Easter morning, Almost Heaven Habitat for Humanity president Kirk Lyman Barner and full time volunteer staff member Chris Caryl will run from the Habitat volunteer center in Cherry Grove over the mountain and into Franklin. This enormous challenge is Almost Heaven Habitat’s latest attempt to promote its work and to generate funds for the building of yet another house.
Almost Heaven is looking for 1000 sponsors to donate $1 per mile for 20 miles in order to raise $20,000 to build a home for a family in Pendleton County.
Lutheran Brotherhood Unit Distributes $59,867 In West Virginia
West Virginia residents and institutions received $59,867 through Lutheran Brotherhood’s charitable and benevolent programs in 1993 in support of community-service activities, Lutheran congregations, Lutheran schools and students.
Nationwide, Lutheran Brotherhood contributed $47.9 million to a variety of fraternal programs in 1993.
Over the last 10 years, Lutheran Brotherhood has contributed more than $300 million to its fraternal outreach programs.
40 Years Ago
Week of March 29, 1984
Fingerprinting Service
To Be Offered Children
A fingerprinting service for children will be offered at the Pendleton County Preschool Screening Clinic Friday in the Pendleton Community Building.
Voluntary fingerprinting of children has increased following a national awareness of the problem of child abduction and the passing of the missing children’s act in October 1982. Fingerprints are important in identifying children whose identity is unknown to authorities. This would apply to very young children, victims of accident or injury, children who give inaccurate information, or those who may be found dead. Prints can also be invaluable to police in the investigation of the disappearance of children. Fingerprinting is most effective when offered by trained volunteers or law enforcement personnel who take classifiable fingerprints.
Parents should keep the only set of prints. If a child should disappear, the prints could be classified by police officials and entered into the FBI’s computer. That information could then be compared against entries from the rest of the country, making it possible to identify a child who was found in another location.
Blood To Be Collected
On North Fork
The American Red Cross Blood Mobile will once again be in the North Fork area for collections. Blood donations will be accepted April 9 from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Clinton Hedrick Community Building in Riverton.
This will be the fourth year that the Spruce Mountain Ruritan Club, in cooperation with the rescue squad and local churches, has sponsored the blood drive.
50 Years Ago
Week of March 28, 1974
Lottery Numbers
Drawn for Men
Born in 1955
Young men born in 1955 had their Selective Service lottery numbers drawn on March 20, even though there is no draft or plans to resume callups for involuntary military service, Harold E. Brown, State Director of Selective Service for West Virginia announced.
West Virginia has approximately 17,000 19-year-olds who had their lottery numbers established by this drawing, according to Mr. Brown.
The Military Selective Service Act requires all young men to register with the system at the time of their 18th birthday.
They are assigned their random Sequence Number through the lottery which is held during the year in which they become 19 years of age.
60 Years Ago
Week of April 2, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Huge Profits Made
By Blockade Runners
The view was lovely at St. George Harbor on Bermuda 100 years ago this week.
There, a motley fleet of steamers and sailing ships, flying an assortment of flags, rocked gently on the beautiful blue-green water—participants in one of the most profitable businesses connected with the Civil War—blockade running.
An indication of the profit that could be gained in the blockade running business was published in Charleston, S. C., that week in the prospectus of one of the British companies engaged in the trade. The company, the prospectus said, planned to begin sending its fleet of five specially built steamers into the Confederacy immediately, bringing supplies and hauling out cotton. Totaling figures on its ledger, the company estimated that each steamer could make two successful runs before it was captured or destroyed, and that would be enough to turn a profit of more than 100,000 pounds.
Such was the flourishing state of the blockade running business as the Civil War entered its fourth year. From Nassau, Havana, the British Honduras, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as from Bermuda, the ships sailed by moonlight to the Confederate coast, bearing gunpowder, armaments, food, clothing, drugs and even liquor for Southerners, then departed with thousands of bales of cotton for the rest of the world.
Although President Lincoln had proclaimed a blockade of the Southern coast in the first week of the war, the blockade had failed to stop the trade.
Estimates were that at least three-fourths of the runs through the blockade were successful during that spring, and earlier in the war the percentage had been higher.
The profits were fantastic. Cotton could be bought at three and four cents a pound in the South and sold at 50 cents a pound in England, and one ship in one run could haul out nearly 1,000 bales. The Richmond Enquirer of April 2, 1864, reported one blockade runner, in several trips, had carried out 12,000 bales—worth 600,000 pounds sterling, a return of about 3 million pounds gold dollars.
The result was that blockade runners materialized from all over the world. Spaniards, Canadians, Mexicans, Greeks and former British navy officers, pursuing adventure and wealth, joined in the trade while the Confederate government declined to take an active part. Although the Federal blockade took a regular toll of the runners, one or two trips usually paid for a ship with profit and after that nearly everything was gravy.
Ironically, while Britishers and Frenchmen joined in blockade running, their governments recognized the legality while winking at the blockade runners who helped keep England’s cotton mills producing.
Next week: End of the Red River Campaign.
661 Women Seek Work
ready, willing and able
A total of at least 661 women are available for industrial work in Pendleton County according to the survey of the female labor population conducted here last week.
George I. Sponaugle, president of Pendleton Industries, Inc., said this group conducted the survey to determine whether enough women were available to work here to satisfy the requirements of a garment manufacturer who is considering the Pendleton County area for a plant site. Sponaugle declined to give the name of the interested firm.
Results of the survey, which was conducted last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, show that the largest category of available able workers is in the 16 to 23 age group. It was this age group that the industrialist was chiefly interested in.
Sponaugle said the firm would not be interested in this location if there were not as many as 250 females available in the 16 to 23 age group. A total of 316 women in this age group indicated their availability for work.
The survey indicated that women are available for work here according to age groups as follows: 16 to 23, 316; 23 to 30, 132; 30 to 40, 183; 40 to 50, 182; 50 to 60, 124; 60 to 70, 40.
Pendleton Industries, Inc., is a non-profit corporation composed of interested local citizens working to provide additional local employment.
70 Years Ago
Week of April 1, 1954
EDITORIALS
PENDLETON HAMS – – –
Pendleton County is rapidly becoming famous for the high quality smoked meats that are produced here. Two weeks ago the Times proudly carried a story on the State F. F. A. Ham, Bacon and Egg Show at Charleston, at which event Kenneth Harper of Riverton exhibited the grand champion ham. In this week’s edition of the Times is a story on the State 4-H Ham and Bacon Show at Clarksburg, where another Pendleton County youth, Earl Bible of Teterton, had the grand champion ham. If our young farmers continue at this rate it will not be long before Virginia Hams and Smithfield Hams will be overshadowed by Pendleton Hams.
Issues and Bullets – – –
Several weeks ago four mad Puerto Ricans slipped into the House of Representatives Chamber in Washington and opened fire on the Congressmen. They fired approximately twenty rounds, and out of the 235 Congressmen, only five were hit, which proves just one thing: Congressmen are as good at dodging bullets as they are at dodging issues.
