By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
I cover Calhoun sports for the Hur Herald www.hurherald.com and when the
notion strikes write an occasional column.
I do it without pay.
Why?
Because I feel my coverage of Calhoun sports will give the Red Devils a
window for the recognition they will not get elsewhere.
And that's not to put a knock on the larger media in the area because they
just don't have the fan base to cover Calhoun the same way they would
Parkersburg High or Parkersburg South. The coverage the Red Devils get in
the Hur Herald is a small way to equalize things.
The Hur Herald provides people in Calhoun County a place to have news that
would not appear in larger media. For instance paving a pothole in
Grantsville is never going to be reported in the Parkersburg News and
Sentinel.
That local coverage provide people here, and former residents elsewhere, a
chance to keep up with what's going on. And, in the sense of being a
community bulletin board if nothing else it makes the Hur Herald something
we need.
The Hur Herald also provides coverage of the not so mundane in the county
too.
For instance the Hur Herald covered the brouhaha surrounding the hiring and
resignation of Dr. Gene Rizzo as principal at Arnoldsburg Elementary School
in a fair and even-handed manner.
The larger media in the state also covered the brouhaha but the larger media
seems to know Calhoun County exists only when there is some kind of negative
news. The rest of the time we are only mentioned when the employment figures
are announced and we have the highest unemployment rate in the state.
Right now the Hur Herald provides a different view of Calhoun County to the
world, or at least the cyber world. There we are working people who have our
problems. But we are also a people that send food and money to Mississippi
and Louisiana; we are also a people that finally pave a pothole that had
been a bone of contention for a long while and we are also a people with a
strong and proud athletic program at our local high school.
The Hur Herald also gives people in the rest of the world a look at our
history through old pictures, our beauty through new pictures and our people
through stories and vignettes.
And the Hur Herald allows people to know who we are and what we think in our
columns and letters.
In other words the Hur Herald allows the world to see us as we are not as
the larger media sees us, and that is a refreshing thing.
Once a year - sort of like public radio - the Hur Herald comes to us asking
for donations to continue to give Calhoun County a place to be us.
This year, according to what I have read, the donations have been coming in
at a mere trickle and that the very existence of the Hur Herald is in doubt.
I have many times told Bob Weaver, Editor of the Hur Herald, that a lost
cause is the only one truly worth fighting for. I make exception here
because I do not feel the Hur Herald is a lost cause.
Please join me in keeping this worthwhile venture alive.
I know these are tough financial times for us all but perhaps we could spare
a couple of gallons of gasoline and send the money to the Hur Herald.
I hope so.
It would be awful not to find Sunny Cal presented as it is for the rest of
the world to see.
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