 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston Community auction will be held Saturday, November 6, starting at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. It will be a good time to lay in supplies for deer camp and to tell about all the big trophy bucks one intends to harvest.
The Veteran's Day program at the Creston Community Building will be Sunday, November 7 at 2 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. All local veterans, family and friends are urged to come and spend the afternoon. Speakers will include Pat Coakley and State Senator Donna Boley.
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. He reported that four new members recently joined at the Bell Chapel Church.
The government ladybugs (Asiatic beetles) continue to plague area residents. Government programs to "help the people" are so wonderful!
The Big Boss apparently has a new highway maintenance priority for the local road workers. The #1 item for road maintenance now seems to be the speedy removal of John Raese signs. In addition the Wirt crew scarified up more of the Ann's Run road to turn it back to dirt. This is the same way little Johnny D. Rockefeller IV did when he played governor on his way to "fame" in Washington, Dee Cee.
Mr. & Mrs. Larry Webster & Mr. & Mrs. Dean Miller were attending to business in Spencer.
Euell Russell was attending to business in Elizabeth one day last week.
The Creston area continues to have helicopter traffic.
Local residents report seeing some spectacular trophy bucks.
There was a big Halloween party Saturday evening on the dePue farm. Several area residents, of varying ages attended the Halloween festivities in Elizabeth.
Some area residents motored down to the Mouth of the Elk River (Haddad Park) to see Sarah & Todd Palin and Ted Nugent who were in town to speak on behalf of John Raese. Both Sarah & Todd gave rousing speeches. On hand was the grim reaper carrying a sign linking the Big Boss to the Big Eared One, a youth with a mask of the big eared one with a sign noting that coal was "his worst headache", and a person in an orange suit in a small orange kayak with a sign that said "No Show Joe" which kept time with the music that was playing.
Anna Yates was visiting her parents and her sister, husband and son before leaving to go to Kuwait City for a year. Her husband, a military contractor, is already there.
Freda May Starcher Love, age 83, passed away at the Miletree Center in Spencer. She was a sister of Paige & Emory Starcher and Pansy Suthpin. Her brothers Virgil & James preceded her in death, as did her sister Ernestine Goff. Burial is to be at Ground Hog on November 1. The Starcher family were tenant farmers on the former Ross Simmons property.
There are a few flowers left remaining after some freezes that made ice on standing water.
One of the top dogs at the Consolidation Coal Company (Consol Gas) advised the folks in Lewis County that they could expect a drilling boom in that county within the near future. Presently there is a lot of drilling in adjacent Upshur County to the east and Harrison County to the north. The coal company also purchased some of the assets of Mother Hope (Dominion) in Calhoun and Wirt Counties.
It was noted that the Marcellus shale gas from the western part of Pennsylvania and the western counties of West Virginia was "hot" meaning that it had a high BTU or heat value. This is because of the presence of a higher percentage of ethane which is the two carbon alkane and the feedstock for many plastics. Some years back someone, in their infinite wisdom, shut down and junked out all the "crackers" that use ethane in the entire eastern United States leaving, perhaps, only one somewhere down in the gulf region. This means that, barring government intervention, there is a golden opportunity for someone to set up the plant. The most ideal location would be along the Ohio River which would give both barge, rail and pipeline access to both supply and market. New crackers to make ethylene are now in the middle east and Royal Dutch Shell recently built a new one in Singapore for about $3 billion. Shell recently purchased the East Resources leases in West Virginia & Pennsylvania. The Marcellus shale also produces lots of brine which presently is being pumped into wells. Someone could convert the brine to salt so that so much salt would not have to be imported from foreign nations.
It is understood that a law firm down at the Mouth of the Elk is busy writing the new law to allow for forced pooling of horizontal wells in the Marcellus and, likely, other formations defined as "shallow". The big boys say they need this so that they can force reluctant landowners to "bend down and take only what is offered".
The price of local Penn grade crude is $75.75. It is noted that inflation is now on the rise which will mean that the price of crude will continue to rise because the dollars are worth less. This will likely soon start to impact food and other things folks need to live. Many more now believe that all this manipulation is deliberate "to bring America down".
| 
