| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston spring ATV poker run will be held on Saturday, April 16 starting at the Creston Community Building. Folks should mark their calendars for a fun filled day.
Junior Wilson's timber crew brought another tree down on the electric lines going up the West Fork from Creston and Allegheny Power was again called to restore service. The power interruption kept Charles Russell from watching his cartoons and caused at least one business to lose computer access during business hours. There were some fine logs cut including some big maple and cherry logs. Back when the dePues owned the land it was always said that the best maple syrup was always made on that property, much better than that made across the West Fork [on evening sun land].
More snow fell in Creston over the weekend with significant amounts both Friday and Saturday evenings although most of the white stuff would go away the next day.
Brandon Ferrell, Alley Oop & Austin Westfall, Melissa Ferrell, along with Devin and Shawn were among those visiting Mr. & Mrs. Carl Ferrell & family. Amy N. Ferrell was on the sick list the other day.
Fed Ex was calling in Creston one day last week.
Anna Engelke, Jessica Potter, Keith Collins & Matt Enders went to Gotham over the weekend and were seen on the Today show with a sign for the Funchester group. Later they went to St. Patrick's Cathedral and the F. A. O. Schwartz Toy Store where Keith drew a crowd as he played with the mambo sticks and other toys. They rode the escalators in Sax Fifth Avenue and then they went to the musical Little Women.
The lovely Dorine Parsons has been visiting Betty & Jerry Myers in Parkersburg.
The price of local Penn grade crude rose to $51/bbl. and the increased price has been reflected in higher gasoline prices even though there is a 15-cent difference as one goes from state to state, especially out of West Virginia.
Dominion (which acquired Mother Hope) announced the Greenbrier Gas line which was to take natural gas to North Carolina and Florida is now defunct and the money will be used to upgrade the LPG plant in Cove Point, Maryland. It was noted that the 'big boys' flare 100 million cubic feet of gas per day in Nigeria, as there is no gas pipeline system there. The tree huggers object to the methane that cows burp but, strangely enough they do not seem to be concerned about such a significant amount of waste. In dollar figures, not counting the propane, butane and natural gasoline the value would be significantly more than $1 million/day.
Closer to home, Cabot Oil & Gas has purchased a number of Columbia's storage fields in Kanawha and Putnam counties. One would conclude that Cabot plans to produce such significant quantities of natural gas that they will have to provide their own storage to market when spot prices are highest.
Mr. & Mrs. Don Rhodes announced that they are expecting.
The plans for county consolidation have now been made rather clear. When the 10 year old daughter of a courthouse employee got to meet the guv the other day she came home and told mommy that he says, "He is going to consolidate the counties". The Little Elf, a/k/a Sen. McCabe the real estate mogul, has made it clear that he does not want any public input or votes on his plan which was made without any input from the "small counties". When the self-appointed consolidation task force met it was made clear that they did not want to hear from anyone who had opposing views.
When asked what they were going to do with the schools when the counties were eliminated the response was, "Well this was such a contentious issue that we agreed not to talk about it." When it was pointed out that current law does not mandate 55 separate school systems the spokesperson noted, "Well, I guess we will have to look at this later." Of course, if the counties are consolidated places like Minnie Hamilton Health Care, The Coplin Clinic, Roane General Hospital and likely all the Clay county facilities would probably be phased out as the criteria for their existence would no longer apply. While the folks in Parkersburg seem to think they would be a natural for a regional government such likely would not be the case as Parkersburg is, more often than not, ignored when regional meetings are held. The Jay Boy even jerked the district highway facility out and sent it to Moundsville. The original plan was a maximum of 10 counties and a minimum of 5. Of course the bond daddies (Step on Your Toes and Johnson) and the elect engineering contractors (Burgess & Nipple, Thrasher, Cerroni, etc.) will all be on board as they can do the bond sales and contracting for the new "21st Century ADA compliant regional courthouses" and related facilities and access roads, etc and make millions for themselves. Some one asked would the employees at the new court houses be elected or appointed by the wise ones down at the Mouth of the Elk.
Each person needs to look at the situation and visualize how things would be if all the local counties are gone and determine what other institutions will go along with them along with the restaurants, stores, etc that these places support. Up in Gilmer County, Glenville State College has been on the endangered species list ever since Buffalo Bill and D. Banks Wilburn ran it in the ground. The local road garages could become substations with all directions coming from the Mouth of the Elk and the schools could be consolidated into "mega schools" just like the state is doing in Lincoln and other counties. Long distance learning could get a new definition.
The state involvement with schools, of course, has more to do with money than it does with the education of children as shown by the antics of Ex-Del Mezzatesta, State School Supt. McClung and his buddy Pork Chop as well as the SBA Gang and those who had to "take early retirement to spend more time with their family" because they were found out.
Peter Triplett who is president of the Clay County Court (Commission) noted that there is legislation pending Down at the Mouth of the Elk to take away from the Boards of Health the regulation of smoking. Someone noted recently that once they get tobacco banned they will go after ice cream, potatoes, hog meat and pie and likely require everyone to eat Tofu whether they liked it or not (and nothing against Tofu and soya beans in general).
M. A. Copen and G. J. Westfall acquired a new (to them) Tee Vee.
The Wirt County Farm Bureau will meet Tuesday March 22 at 7 P. M. at the road garage in Elizabeth.
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