Clinch Valley Times September 11, 2014: Page 1

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576 EX/C Smalltown Papers 217 W. Cota Street Shelton WA 98584 " Clinch Valley • " 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things...' "' Vol. LVI, No. 36 Thursday, September 11, 2014 Saint Paul, Virginia ni a. PRESS Association 50 cents Virginia Tech's .... Save Our Towns project in, Appalachia releases Episode Two Rivers are a big'part of munities on the Clinch the natural beauty of R i v e r Virginia's Appalachian (http://www.cdac.arch.vt.e region, du/ClinchRiverAccess.htm In Episode Two of Save 1) make it more accessible Our Towns, LaraBrowning to residents by designing of Virginia Tech's trails, campgrounds, and Community Design small parks. Assistance Center tells Save Our Towns, a how students helped corn- monthly Internet video series designed to guide and inspire leaders working to build strong communi- ties, is produced by Virginia Tech each month and distributed to mayors and town managers in 80 Virginia towns and inde- pendent cities in 25 coun- ties. In the new episode, St. Paul Mayor Kyle Fletcher argues that his town will succeed in attracting tourists where others have failed. Fletcher has agreed to be documented in Save Our Towns over the course of the upcoming year. Also in the episode, The•Russell County Fair ended another spectacular year on Saturday. The rains held off, for the :most part, and t he attendance was great! :00arof events i i. ..... AA-SUndays and Tuesdays: Big Stone Gap, 8 pm, Episcopal Church. Wednesdays: Wise, 8 pm, Trinity United Methodist Church. Fridays: Clintwood, 7:30 pm, Clintwood United Methodist Church. COPPER CREEK ELEMENTARY PTA- 3rd Monday, 7 pm school cafeteria. ST. PAUL IDA BOARD-Fourth Mondays, 6 pm, St. Paul Town Hall. ST. PAUL TOWN COUNCIL-Third Mondays, 6 pm, Town Hall. CASTLEWOOD W& SA-The Castlewood Water & Sewage Authority Board of Directors, 6 pm second Mondays. ALZHEIMER'S SUPPORT=First Tuesday, 1 pm; Appalachian Agency for Senior Citizens office, Claypool Hill. Free. NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS- Tuesdays and Saturdays, 8 pm Presbyterian Church, Norton. CASTLEWOOD LODGE #231=Stated meetings will be held the third Saturday of each month. The School of Instruction will be held on fourth Thursdays at 7. ST. PAUL LODGE #343-Second Thursdays, 7:30 pm, Stated Communication; First Thursday, 7 pm School of Instruction. VFW POST #8652, DAV CHAPTER 12- 4th Tuesday, 7 pm, VFW, Riverview, Coebum. NEIGHBORS AID- Thursdays, 9:30 to 12. St. Therese's Neighbors Aid Building, new & used clothing for sale. RUSSELL CO. BOARD OF SUPER- VISORS-First Monday, [l|ll[I]$J[]![l!ll!llll 6 pm, Lebanon. CLINCHFIELD LODGE #256-Stated Communication, 1st Saturdays, 7:30; School of Instruction third Thursdays, 7 pm RECOVERY GROUP-The Wise County Mental Health Center conducts a recovery group for sub- stance abusers and fam- ilies Fridays at 10 am Call 276-679-0810. ACOA MEETING- Adult Children of Alcoholics Feet Mondays, 7 pm, First Baptist Church, Coeburn. Call 762- 0016, 276-395-6588 or 276-679-7371. LITTLE LEAGUE- The Clinch River Little League Board meet at 4 pm third Sundays at the UMWA Building in Castlewood. All inter- ested persons are invit- ed to attend. H.O.P.E. HOUSE- H.O.P.E. House pro- vides emergency shel- ter for victims of domestic violence in Wise, Russell, Dickenson, lee, Scott and Buchanan counties and the City of Norton. Volunteers needed- training available. Call 1-800-572-2278. SENIOR CITI- ZENS-The Castle- wood Senior Citizens meet at 10 am Wednesdays at the Castlewood Lions Den. Anyone 60 or over is invited. The Dante Senior Citizens meet each Monday and Tuesday at 10 am at the Dante Fire Department. Russell County residents 60 or older are invited. RUSSELL CO. LIBRARY-Hours at the Russell County Public Library, Lebanon, are M/Tu/W/F 10am- 5:30pm; Th 10am-8pm; Sa 10am-2pm. Sunday Closed. MATTHEWS LIBRARY-Hours at the J. Fred Matthews Memorial Library, St. Paul, are July 1-31: DAY-Appalachian Closed Monday; Agency for Senior 10:30am-7pm Tuesday; Citizens recognizes 9:30-6 pm Wednesday; persons in Russell, 9:30-6 pm Thursday Dickenson, Buchanan and Friday. Saturday and Tazewell counties Closed. Sunday who are 100 years old Closed. or older. Call Dana D I C K E N S O N- Collins, 1-800-656- B U N D Y- T h e 2272, to adviseAASC Dickenson-Bundy Log of any upcoming 100th House is open weekly birthday. Thursdays through S U P P O R T Saturdays, 10-3, and GROUP-Women sur- Sundays 12-4 pm. vivors of sexual assault SOCIAL SECURI- are invited to attend TY-The Wise Social Clinch Valley Security Office is open C o m m u n i c a t i o n Mondays-Fridays from Action, Inc./Family 9am-4pm. Phone num- Crisis Services' sup- bers are 1-800-772- port group meeting .1213 or 276-679-7633. 'with victims of similar L I B R A R Y situations Mondays, FRIENDS-Friends of 10:30 am-12 noon. For the J. Fred Matthews information call Rande Memorial Library, St. Hackler, 276-988-5583 Paul meet at the Library or Ranetta Davis, 276- on first Thursdays at 4 889-8206. pm. FREE ADULT ED- VFW POST 9864- Free adult education VFW Post 9864, classes are available in Lebanon, welcomes Lee, Scott and Wise new members. If you counties and the City of served overseas during Norton. Daytime and any war, write VFW evening classes for Post 9864, P.O. Box adults who want to 1419, Lebanon, VA improve their basic 24266 and send name, skills. Instructors also address and phone assist adults with job- number. Transfers wel- related skills including corned, resume, writing and HEALTH SER- interviewing. For VICES-The Wise details, call 1-800-422- County Health 3433 or 276-386-2433. Department, Wise, is TRANSPORTA- open from 8am-8pm TION- The first Thursdays. Appalachian Agency Clinics will be for Senior Citizens pro- offered in family plan- vides disability trans- ning, pediatrics, school portation services in and. adult physicals, Buchanan, Dickenson, WlC, Paps and immu- Russell and Tazewell n i z a t i o n s . counties to individuals Appointments are nec- with disabilities, essary for all but immu- regardless of age. Call nizations. For an 1-888-656-2272. appointment, call 762- G E N E A L O G Y 328-8000. GROUP-The Russell F A C I L I T I E S County Genealogy AVAILABLE-The Group meets 5:30 pm Tacoma Community first Thursdays, Russell • Center is available for County Public Library, reunions, birthdays and Lebanon. showers. Group purpose is All proceeds reha- "to learn, to share and bilitate the Tacoma to perpetuate family School as a Community history." William T. Center. For informa- Fuller, 276-623-3410 tion, call 395-6398. 100TH BIRTH- See CALENDAR, Page 8 Church and church-related activities calendar on page 3 C.M. Mitchell, mayor of the city of Galax, talks about the culture of moun- tain and bluegrass music. The field report from Whitney Bonham of Virginia Tech's Office of Economic Development shows how, in the Twin Counties region of Southwest Virginia, com- munitymembers exercised leadership. Episode 2 is posted at Save Our Towns (http://www. saveour- towns.outreach.vt.edu/) or can be viewed in this YouTube video found here: http ://www.vtnews.vt.edu/ articles/2014/09/090314- o u t r e a c h - townstwoAB.htmL Save Our Towns is designed to help communi- • ty leaders: * learn about Virginia Tech projects in Appalachia (http://www. saveour- towns.outreach.vt.edu/vt- connections/) * find resources (http://www. saveour- towns.outreach.vt.edu/reso urces-2/) such as case stud- ies and funding opportuni- ties * contact experts interviewed in the series and read their full tran- s c r i p t s (http://www.saveour- towns.outreach.vt.edu/con- nect-with-experts/) In Episode Three, due to be released in October, Larkin Dudley, professor emerita in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, discusses • the vital work of citizen advisory boards in small towns. She has worked in Appalachia under a Kettering Foundation grant. Mayor Lee Coburn of Glade Spring shares insights about how his tiny commu- nity, though ravaged by a tornado, overcame not only natural disasters but also inertia to resuscitate its downtown Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech (http://www.vt.edu) takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the com- monwealth's most compre- hensive university and its leading research institu- tion, Virginia Tech offers 225 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 stu- dents and manages a research portfolio of $496 million. The university ful- t-dis its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through techno- logical leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia. More about Erma Wolfe O0 • by Jerry Couch It'sa beautiful late sum- mer morning here at Mew. As I write these words, I'm sitting at my kitchen table. The doors and windows are since burned away and the cool morning had been replaced by the intense heat of midday. Erma was laughing but Erma weaving open, the sun is shining, the temperature is perfect, and a symphony of birds and insects can be heard outside• It's the kind of day Erma Wolfe loved; a per- fect day for remembering her... Many pages in my men- tal "memory book" are devoted to conversation I had with Erma Wolfe. One favorite memory concerns a berry-picking expedition at Couch Hill which took • place around 1970. I had told Erma about our bumper crop of blackber- ries and she asked if she could pick some of them. On a foggy morning a few days later, Erma arrived with Anita Robinson in tow. I showed the ladies where the best berries could be found and they began picking. Around lunchtime they returned. By then the fog had long Anita was wilted. Her face was sunburned. She had been scratched by briers, bitten by insects, and thought she may have seen a snake. This had brought her berry-picking to a screeching halt. Both ladies deposited them- selves on the porch swing• Anita fanned herself vigor- ously with a newspaper and kept repeating, "Oh, that sun was hot! I'm burn- ing up!" Erma was cool as a cucumber and could have happily picked berries for a couple more hours. By the time they left, Anita's good humor had been restored by cold lemonade and pleasant conversation. She even admitted she had a good time. Another pleasant mem- ory concerns a day when I happened to encounter Erma chatting with Mrs. Connie Cain in Piggly Wiggly• The ladies had parked their shopping carts in the produce aisle and were laughing about some- thing one of them had said. When she saw me, Erma exclaimed, "Jerry...it is an unwritten law that all shop- pers must yield the right of way when two women are talking in the grocery store!" Yes, I still yield the right-of-way. Erma once gave me some excellent advice which I had sense enough to put into practice. She said "One of the best things I've ever done was learn to say NO." She explained that when you agree to do things you really don't want to do, your life is not your Own. So true. We need more people like Erma Wolfe. We need them badly. We need them RIGHT NOW. There are too many among us who are isolated and lonely; people who long for a visit from a friend or help with small tasks. We need peo- ple who recognize the worth of our rapidly-disap- pearing culture; people who recognize that real Appalachians are being driven farther back all the time. We need people who "loveth best all things both great and small." Erma worked at becoming what she was, it didn't just hap- pen. I can become that kind of person, too, by working at it. So can you. • Please see the tribute to Erma Wolfe on page two which was written by Ann Gregory after Erma's death on January 1, 1982. The tribute appeared in the January 7, 1982 edition of the Clinch Valley Times. Ann did a wonderful job describing Erma and today we are re-printing her trib- ute in its entirety.