CRESTON NEWS

(11/18/2003)
By Alvin Engelke

Denver Dennis, age 79, passed away after an extended illness. A former Creston resident he played music and sang for years at the Creston sings and elsewhere. Many local residents enjoyed hearing Denver sing and play. Now he will be playing in another band.

Phyllis Rader Campbell, age 64, passed away in a Charleston hospital. The daughter of the late Howard and Leona Basnett Rader she was he wife of Jerry Campbell. Burial was in the McCray cemetery at Creston.

Pearl Goff, age 54 of Parkersburg, passed away. She was a daughter of Fred & Ernestine Goff. The family formerly lived in Rock Camp.

While the Creston area did not receive the destructive floods that hit the southern counties, there were a number of local roads that were closed by high water for a time.

Bernard Wyatt was attending to business in Creston one day last week.

A big rock fell down at Cherry early Saturday morning blocking W. Va. Route 5. Folks had to go up Chestnut Run, over Owl Hill and down Deaver's Fork to the Munday road to get to Elizabeth. The Wirt road crew worked all day to remove the rocks. One rock punched a hole almost 6 feet deep in the black top.

Those who claimed that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the worldwide war against terror got a surprise when the secret memo to Sen. John Rockefeller IV was released showing that Osama and Saddam had been cooperating for several years.

It was learned that Cabot set a new power unit on their compressor at Oak Station on the Carroll road near Purdy. This way Cabot can transport gas without using the Dominion system. Earlier Cabot had planned to sell their Calhoun area lines to Dominion. It has been reported that crews are working to put in a bypass at the Hastings station that blew up last month. It was also learned that 160,000 dth/day of gas went through the Hastings stripping plant.

Luella Greathouse has been trying to determine where Anna Sampson is buried. Mrs. Sampson was Perry G. Marks' mother-in-law. The Marks family lived on Ann's Run.

Local residents are getting ready for the annual madness, firearms deer season when all the city folks come out looking for trophy bucks. While there are some fine specimens most of the deer one sees are "bald". It is hoped that there will be a bountiful harvest since there is an over population of the DNR's prize animals and disease already seems to be a major problem that will only get worse.

Some of the critters that tried to argue with motor vehicles were placed in the buzzard feeding ground but they did not show up for supper. Apparently they have headed to the sunny south for the winter.

The fish folks from DNR were stocking some blue cats in the Little Kanawha River. The Palestine Bass Hatchery raised a whole bunch of paddlefish too.

The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil rose to $29.25/bbl. Natural gas prices have been falling. The Greenbrier pipe line project that was to take gas from Clay County to North Carolina and Florida was put on hold when power companies did not commit for the gas that was to be shipped. A company spokesperson said that the problem was that the capital markets were messed up as a result of the Arthur Anderson fiasco which was part of the fallout of the Enron bust. Enron was closely connected to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

Some local residents grew some fine turnips that are tasty both cooked and raw. One fellow who is batching has been having to get along on fried green tomatoes, venison and gravy and potatoes.