| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Juanita Lockhart filled her regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. The Marks family, Janet Jett, the Hurst family, Steve & Juanita provided special music.
The regular Creston Community Building auction will be held on Saturday, April 1 starting at 6 P. M. Come on out and tell about the April Fool's Day joke you pulled on someone or else tell how someone pulled one on you. There will be fine food.
The regular business meeting for the Creston Community Building will be Tuesday, April 4 at 7 P. M. at the Community Building and the Spring Poker Run will be held April 15.
Alvin Engelke attended the state addressing board meeting in Elizabeth. This is the outfit that is supposed to be overseeing the 911 addressing by the out of state firm that was hired. Upon questioning one of the board members indicated that the "work product was not what we expected" so we cut a deal. To paraphrase, "We didn't want to look bad again [after McKenzie] so we said we'll give you most of your money and we'll just let the counties do the work and no one [hopefully] will be the wiser." One of the state fellers said, "This was the first time such a big 911 project was attempted." Of course folks here had understood that this had been done all over the country - that was the way on the TV show - and the wheel didn't need to be reinvented.
Syndy Smell, Microdata's 'pretty face in Charleston' was at the meeting too. It could be such a thing that the Vermont firm, instead of using the maps made for them just used "Mapquest" or some other mapping format and then outsourced the rest of the work to Lahore or perhaps Bangalore, Bombay or Bangla Desh. Ross Tucker, Fred Bish and Alvin Engelke would be hard to find there as would the houses of worship and schools in Elizabeth.
Folks from various counties spoke of problems with the postal system including, so they said, lack of even modest computer capacity as would be found on most personal computers. As many know part of Calhoun County has 911 addresses and that section was done by the rural route carrier, apparently without any hitches in cooperation with the local Calhoun 911 board.
Sen. Donna Boley was there and learned the magnitude of the problems facing counties with the proposed system. While Wirt County had been given only 30 days to fix a product that might be 15% correct one of the "big boys" said, "You have until November but don't tell anyone."
The state school board closed a high school in Lincoln County even though there is no place for the scholars to go [the new school isn't built yet]. The bureaucrats cited low test scores but the state had run the system for the last 5 years. Obviously arrogance and contempt for the state's youth have no bounds. The southern political bosses would all be in the slammer if the citizens there were educated and savvy.
Many local residents have helped with the Katrina aftermath but just to show that ineptitude and corruptness are not limited to the Mouth of the Elk, the mayor of New Orleans said "Absolutely not" to an outfit that wanted to pay the city $5 million to take all the abandoned & flooded vehicles. He decided to give the job to someone else who would charge the taxpayers $23 million and take 3 times as long to do the job.
Eva G. Pennington is home after being a surgical patient. She received a much better than expected report.
The forsythia has been trying to bloom although the local area has had snow, about 3 inches one time and just a little a couple of other times.
Some fine full length logs have been hauled from Ann's Run. Travelers report delays as the unknown loggers are loading in the highway.
Alvin Wiles continues to improve after his hospital stay. He may have to go to a nursing home for a while.
Marie Luzader is back in a nursing home after a hospital visit.
The price of local Penn grade crude rose to $60.25/bbl and those who bet on such matters (those in the futures market) indicate the price will hold at that range until, at least next year. The price of natural gas is expected to stay in the $7 -$8 range until next winter when it will go to the $11 range.
The Wirt road crew bermed W. Va. 5 in the Creston area which was an improvement. Earlier the crew had been picking up trash on roads that had not been adopted for litter cleanup. W. Va. 14 between Wood County and Elizabeth had been trashed badly by those who don't care. Now the county has a better look and hopefully the enforcement folks will apprehend the trashy folks and end the littering. The folks down at the Mouth of the Elk apparently will not allow the local road folks to do routine maintenance as the money "has to be saved" for someplace else?
In other sections the road crews have been "cutting timber so the mud holes would dry up." It was always felt when such was being done the leadership was devoid of what sort of work could be done by the men that would actually help the traveling public.
Gary Freed heard that Creston "had a red light district" [this one woman played a prank on a friend & neighbor] so he stopped at the end of the West Fork bridge and asked Dorine where this place might be located.
Alvie & Gary P. Ferrell were calling on relatives and associates in Creston one day last week.
Brenda McCann (Edd Criss' granddaughter), Julie Tracewell, Nancy & Jane Engelke got on the big bird and went to the market in Atlanta for Jane's store in Vienna.
Nickie Hilton has a line of clothes and Brenda and Julie got to have their picture taken with the hotel heiress who is also a fashion designer.
They all went to eat at the diner in the Day's Inn in downtown Atlanta and the restaurant ran out of food. All the illegal aliens went on strike to oppose enforcement of immigration laws and the husbands and wives of the employees in the diner came in to sweep the floors, chop vegetables, etc. If the illegals are shipped back then the only solution to the lack of workers would be to take the able bodied off SSI and say "Work or starve!"
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