CRESTON NEWS

(12/28/2011)
By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com

Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church Christmas morning and served Holy Communion. There were 21 present.

Nathan Belt was calling at the Gay Park residence.

Anna Yates was visiting the home folks over the Christmas weekend. Her husband is still in 'scenic' Afghanistan.

Anna Reno has accepted a position as health information specialist with the West Virginia Breast & Cervical Cancer Screening Program. Anna will be covering Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Wirt & Wood Counties and can be reached at 1-800-642-8522. She formerly worked for the Rural Health Education Partnerships. She had a nice write up in the Sunday Parkersburg News.

A 'prominent' Wood County real estate agent who was somewhat impaired the other evening indicated that he supported Ron Paul for president as "He would repeal all the drug laws." This fellow was a walking billboard of what drugs can do to one and it certainly was not positive. One local resident received a call from the RNC wanting money but the caller was told since they were supporting a RINO they could look elsewhere for cash.

Some former state tax department employees have been going around offering to work for county assessors to show that with the big bonus money being paid for Marcellus leases that the counties could get lots of cash by jacking up the value of oil and gas in place just like little Johnny D. Rockefeller IV did when he was playing governor with the coal tax. Then agents of a family company (Carter Oil) came around and offered pennies on the dollar and purchased the coal since the tax was so high most folks could not afford to pay. After the property changed hands the coal tax was, of course, lowered.

The "wise ones" have been saying that "the Marcellus shale ain't no good around here" but when Noble Energy purchased the rights from Consolidation Coal (CNX) leases in Wood and Roane Counties were transferred too. In addition Noble purchased a one half interest in the Marcellus shale owned by CNX in Roane County, mostly in the Richardsonville and Tariff oil fields for $3,336.40/net acre. Noble paid just $16,429,990.39 for a half interest in the Marcellus owned by CNX in Wood County.

Jed Purdy who is now a professor at Duke University law school seems to be upset over the U. S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. Many feel that it was a proper decision which allows ordinary folks to compete on the political scene with billionaire currency manipulator George Soros, AIG, Jeffery Immelt & GE and the union bosses, Arab oil sheiks and liberal media that have unlimited funds. The supreme court rule, in part, alleviates the problem caused by the ill advised McVain Feingold law that muzzled political talk for some but not others.

A prominent Roane County farmer noted that the gas company has the road on his farm in such a bad shape that he cannot get his cattle trailer to his barn so that he can separate the heifers from their daddy and that they refuse to provide rock or do any repairs stating "they don't have to".

According to reports the Christmas party to attend was thrown by a Roane County oilman at his palatial residence on a hill south of the Big Kanawha overlooking the state capitol building. Prime's (Sterling Drilling) man there was lamenting the fact that his outfit didn't have any leases in the center of the Marcellus & Utica booms where they could get the big bucks for assignments of the hot pay zones.

A gent from the area who practices medicine down in the Kentucky Blue Grass was visiting family & friends over Christmas and he noted that several in his vicinity read the Creston News every week.

The DOH bridge crew was inspecting the Creston and Annamoriah bridges one day last week. They also placed some cold mix on the expansion joints of the Creston span.

Jim & Barbara Bush were splitting firewood recently.

The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude rose to $98.08/bbl.