| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston auction will be held Saturday, October 2, starting at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Bobby Ray will have all sorts of goodies and while one is looking for bargains one can catch up on all the news (that never gets printed anywhere). There will be good food, 50/50s and all sorts of fun things. There should even be some politicians out looking for votes. Proceeds go to keep the building up.
Donations of candy and money are needed for the annual dress up gala to be held at the end of October. For details call Tammy at 927-6164.
153 people went on the fall ATV poker run in spite of the road closure on W. Va. 5 at the mouth of Still Run. A few riders got stuck and had to be pulled out and one fellow, who was described as "being easily led" ran out of fuel after playing in mud holes (and having to be extricated). Dan Thomas had the best hand, Sue White was second and Debra Newman was third. Debra said she had never won anything before and was beaming from ear to ear, not that Dan Thomas was gloomy. Sue & Eliot went home before the winners were determined. Jarrell McKown won the 50/50. The community would like to thank all who helped and all those who came and participated and made the day a fun event. Some folks came down from Michigan to be able to ride and there were some who were youngsters in their 80s.
Dave Sheets from W. Va. DOH Heavy Maintenance said Friday that he hoped to have W. Va. Route 5 open by Sunday evening but when checked Sunday morning the road was open although one has to go slow over the fill which is not yet consolidated. The detour had been quite a burden to some people, especially those who did not know to go over Owl Hill or those who were terrified of meeting an 18-wheeler in one of the narrow places. One poor woman got lost and ended up down in Big Two Run and others stated they went to houses and asked directions. Kenny Collins met an over the road tractor trailer trying to go down the hill by the Dan Little residence which meant he was lost for he was on the wrong road on the wrong hill.
Those who have not registered to vote or have moved should, very soon, go get registered because one can be sure that the residents of the graveyards down south will all make it out to cast their ballots for those who rule down at the Mouth of Elk River. Seems the folks down there didn't want Dan Blather and his friends in a national political organization to get all the press so Delegate Mezzatesta (or his staff as he says) had a fabricated letter made up too. His was written on stationary that did not exist at the time it was dated.
Mary Reno was calling on area relatives and friends.
Rev. Juanita Lockhart filled her regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church.
Keith Collins, Anthony Cox, Joel Hartshorn and Corry Hamrick, along with Alice Ann and Cassandra, attended the big ball game at Morgantown.
Local residents who have family and friends in Florida have been watching the weather again as yet another hurricane slammed into the state. Some political operatives were lamenting the fact that they could not come down from New England to work the state for fear that they would offend the residents or, worse yet, be asked to help with the cleanup.
Dave McKain, who was instrumental in developing the oil and gas park at Burning Springs, was named as Oil & Gas Man of the Year by the Oil & Gas Festival at Sistersville. Sistersville, Marietta and other Ohio River towns are still cleaning up from the big flood and the toll is significant. One local resident wrote the owner of Brownie's Bakery in Marietta asking that he reopen. Those who can should help and encourage all those who were impacted by the big flood of 2004.
The price of local crude oil rose to $45.25 bbl while some natural gas fetched around $8/MCF although Columbia is still only paying $3.25 at least until the lawsuit is over.
A number of local residents attended the informational meeting held at Flatwoods by the State Organization of Counties, the State Tax Department, the oil and gas organizations and the Geological Survey. A lot of good information was provided to all who came although some who should have stayed left before the geology talk. Folks from the Roane and Clay County Assessor's offices were present but it was very noticeable that certain local counties did not have representatives. Hunter MacCauley Bennett, Jr. an attorney and representative of the old landed aristocracy, was even there as was Junior Jackson. In addition to "regular production" coal bed methane and deep drilling were discussed at some length.
Allegheny Energy, the local provider of both electric and gas announced that they were going to sell their gas operations to a consortium called IGS Utilities, LLC, IGS Holdings, LLC and ArcLight Capital Partners, LLC. The price is $244 million which will help Allegheny reduce debt and, hopefully, stave off bankruptcy. According to the report, Mountaineer Gas will also be sold in addition to the former Cabot properties which were operated as W. Va. Power Gas for a time. ArcLight Capital Partners is a Boston based firm, formed in 2001, with $6 billion invested in deals. One of the partners is Calpers, better known as the California Public Employees Retirement Fund which has been in the news elsewhere. Another partner is a French-Canadian firm.
A bunch of pictures were made up when the husband of a billionaire heiress tried to show that he was a regular guy and went into a sports bar during an "American football" game to have a brew. The whole thing looked weird as "patrons" were drinking a clear fluid from beer mugs using pink straws. Earlier the same feller bragged about the AK 47 that he had in his "gun collection". He probably has it stored at "Lambert Field" which is in Blue Jay Bay, Wisconsin. Those who think that events that happen elsewhere have no local impact have been smoking that stuff that the helicopters have been looking for recently. It was understood that several additional passes were made over some local real estate.
Jane Engelke has been attending to business in Michigan. She, Sam T'ang, Danielle Wellington and Sharon Grace Clark all attended the Miss Michigan USA pageant. Jane also went shopping in metropolitan Detroit City looking for ideas for her new store.
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