| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston area had a hard rain and the West Fork came up and "added some minerals to the grass in the low ground". Spring peepers got excited and started singing again and some toads even were trilling although, for some reason, the toad population seems to be greatly diminished.
Rev. Harold Francis brought the message at the Burning Springs M. E. church as a result of a scheduled pulpit exchange. Sierra Starcher provided special singing.
Janet Jett is scheduled for eye surgery at WVU hospital in Morgantown. She has been suffering with double vision.
Clarence Davis, age 74, passed away in Marietta. He was born in Creston, the son of Lonnie and Minnie Shimer Davis. He was laid to rest in the Pine Alley cemetery at Annamoriah.
Mabel Bertha Criss Park, age 92, died in a Parkersburg rest home. Born near Creston, she was the daughter of James S. & Minnie Nash Criss. Her husband Hershel Park passed away in 2001. She was buried at Ground Hog.
Opal Jean Ross, age 91, of Big Root passed away. She was a daughter of famous Little Kanawha River boat builder J. C. "Tude" Williams.
It was learned that the Great Pifu received a DOH "Attaboy" for having the cleanest and best maintained headquarters in the district.
The FunChester group feasted on locust blossoms over the weekend. By popular request here is the recipe. 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour, ½ cup sugar, 1 ½ t baking powder, ¼ t salt, ¼ t cinnamon, 1/8 t nutmeg, 1 T shortening, 1 egg, ¾ C milk. Mix up all ingredients (spice to taste) and if too thick add more milk. Dip fresh blossoms into batter until thoroughly coated. Deep fry until golden brown. Shake blossoms in paper bag with sugar to coat. Eat while hot.
Of course this recipe and lots more favorites will be in the Creston cookbook. Contact Rebecca Starcher and order one soon.
The Creston area big auction will be Saturday, June 4 at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Several very nice items have already been donated and someone will leave with some fine things.
One young at heart fellow told his sweetie on the occasion of their anniversary that he was taking her to a party. [She thought really?] Turned out they went to a "paint party" and they actually painted [the town] red. It seems that a second coat of paint needed to be applied to some playground equipment.
Carl Wix and R. W. Arthur were attending to business in Elizabeth.
Mother Hope's (Dominion Transmission) men have been walking the company pipelines in the Creston area.
C. Romeo Griffin, Sr., Lois & J. P. Marks motored to Florida to visit Pretty Little Red Flower as well as Mary Newton and family. The family doctor said the trip shouldn't hurt C. Romeo so off they went.
Aaron Marks went on a school trip to Cincinnati Ohio.
The Woodring family held their family reunion at the Creston Community Building.
Jane Wiley was visiting area graveyards and checking on her oil interests.
Denver & Tammy McFarland motored to Cincinnati to attend Denver's son Darby's graduation from Xavier University. The local folks spent the night in the scenic city by the river.
The Wirt County VFD entered two teams in the state fire skills contest and both teams placed first. That is reassuring to say the least that the local firemen are the best. Stephen Settles whose family hails from and lives in Creston has occasion for some pride.
Local residents put up some hay & worked up corn ground (before the rain).
The old furniture salesman is said to be spending time at the rifle range honing his skills for the big prairie dog hunt out in the badlands of South Dakota. It was noted that he once shot off an antler and once removed a tail from another prize deer so some wonder how many of the prairie dogs will loose their tails in his quest to fill his freezer.
The sign said, "Clinton's Lies Never Killed Anyone" but then some one added, "Yes, just ask Ron Brown, Vince Foster and Jim McDougal".
The effort by Newsweak to embarrass America and our president by alleging that a Moslem Koran was flushed down a toilet has backfired. Of course folks who have flush toilets know that books won't go down but the people who rioted in Afghanistan have now idea how toilets work but they did understand what got on their holy book. It seems that some in this country will do anything to make America look bad and lose the worldwide war on terror, especially if they can make the president look bad. Now it has been found out that convicted currency manipulator George Soros, who spent $25 million or more in the last election after promoting campaign finance reform funded a number of programs on CNN promoting his radical causes.
More and more names continue to come up in the UN Oil for Food Swindle. One of the "champions of the poor and downtrodden from England" came and lectured the U. S. Congress. Poor fellow he lives in a villa in Portugal. He like W. Va. congress critter Nicky Joe Rahall visited Saddam and Baghdad often.
Speaking of oil, the local price fell to $43.50/bbl.
Donna Sue Ferrell, Teddy Parsons and Robert Lee Phillips helped Jane Engelke move to her new store at 1505 Grand Central Avenue in Vienna.
Josemite Sam Dawson went off to gradall school. He noted that when he got in everyone else got far, far out of the way.
DNR game manager J. R. Hill and an associate were doing something in Creston over the weekend.
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