| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Bobby Ray Starcher who has been doing auctions at the Creston Community Building for many years had surgery on one of his carotid arteries (the ones that take blood to the brain) so he will not be able to have a September auction. Folks will just have to do without all his goodies until October. Thus, there will be no auction at the Creston Community building on September 2.
Nancy Hall has been sick after undergoing treatments for cancer.
Noble Lee McFarland, age 77 of Gay passed away after a long illness. He was the father of Denver McFarland who lives out on part of the old Millard Fillmore Simmons farm.
Rev. Paul Williams filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. Next Sunday, August 27 there will be no church at Burning Springs as all Methodist churches on the Wirt charge will meet at the Sportsman's Park in Elizabeth for a picnic and group worship and sing. Folks need to gather there Sunday morning for services start at 10:30. As the old saying goes, "Bring a covered dish; there will be dinner on the grounds."
Former Annamoriah Creek resident Mary Wolverton turned 88 on Monday August 21. One of the highlights in her life these days is reading the Creston News each week. She shares a room at the Minnie Hamilton Extended Care facility with Bessie Basnett who, it is said, has a special bulletin board with a fishy theme. Margaret Conners also lives at the facility and maintains her interest in Creston area happenings.
Both Donna Sue and Carl Ferrell were consulting their physicians.
Local residents are reminded that farm use forms must be filed before the end of August for otherwise farmland will be classified as condominium sites, strip mall locations and such. Of course no one should forget that there will be a special legislative session just after the November election to revamp the state tax code and raise taxes on land as the Big Boss said land taxes were too low.
While there is always talk in W. Va. about the lack of good jobs, those who have had occasion to be in southern Roane County report that they see the large group of Mexican/Wetback laborers that Chesapeake Appalachia has employed there and now a big sawmill in Logan County hired 20 Mexicans through a contract labor supplier. Workers at the sawmill/flooring mill make something over $13/hour according to a paper published down at the Mouth of the Elk. The company said they needed steady workers so "these must be the jobs that Americans won't fill". Of course, at the same time some politicians who are obviously talking to someone in the Twilight Zone speak of raising the "minimum wage". Even teenagers working at fast food places do better than that.
The local area received something over an inch of rain during Saturday's storm. A big limb fell in the road going up to the WEVA Station and Cap'n Spock and Joe Cunningham were obliged to remove it.
Richard McFall was in Creston looking after his oil interests.
Artex, the California based outfit that leased all of Edith Roberts's properties with an unrecorded document, has been trying to lease other mineral owners. Their so called "standard" lease says they will pay "a net royalty on the gas" and the mineral owners are to pay 1/8th of all "production taxes". The folks who brought the class action suit against Columbia (& Chesapeake) have fixed up a form lease so those wanting to lease property should use it so that hard won concessions can be kept and one's grandchildren won't be saying, "Didn't grandpa read that lease he signed? The Company is cheating us each and every month and now there is nothing we can do about it." From the earliest days at Burning Springs royalties have always been gross royalties and expenses have been the responsibility of the operators, not the mineral owners.
The other day both Alvin & Nancy Engelke had appointments with Dr. Mills, the Elizabeth dentist and Alvin was also to meet with Carol Campbell so they drove separately to the county seat. They then went together in the automobile to Parkersburg where each had errands and jobs to attend to. Finally they came back home to Creston.
The next morning Alvin went out to get in the truck to go to the post office but could not find it. At first he thought that the Midnight Supply had pulled off a big heist but then he remembered that the truck was still in front of the dentist's office in Elizabeth. Richard Mc Fall gave Alvin a ride to rescue the truck.
M. C. Pursley, Jr. was attending to business in Creston over the weekend.
The price of local Penn grade crude was $67/bbl over the weekend. The crazy who runs Iran (Persia) has threatened all sorts of things, up through & including Armageddon, for August 22 so we can all watch and see what happens both in the worldwide terror war and in fuel prices. It had been suggested in this column earlier that he read the Book of Esther but, apparently, The Creston News does not have a Farsi edition for him to read so he can be warned of his error.
While such has been in the news for some years now, only in the past week did local residents get e-mails asking that they help the illegitimate son of a Congolese despot get his $10 million out of an African bank where it is being held by evil bankers who won't let him get the loot which, obviously, was stolen from U. S. Foreign Aid. Of course all one has to do is send your bank account number ... It is said that the scam is one of the major portions of foreign earnings in Nigeria where most of this con game is based. Recently a congress critter was caught with cold cash (in his freezer) that came from some of these fine folks.
Becky Starcher had a little bad luck when her lawnmower caught on fire. Lots of people came to put the fire out.
Mr. & Mrs. Carl Ferrell were calling on Ruby Sutton out on Punkin Knob. Carl took her some floor jacks so she could set up her Tee Pee.
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