Thursday, July 4, 1974
Edgar Bridge Dedication
The Thomas C. Edgar Memorial Bridge at Seebert will be formally dedicated by Delegate Sarah Neal July 8 at 6:30 p.m. She will bring a proclamation from Governor Moore, officially naming the bridge. A bronze plaque, imbedded in a piece of marble from the Edgar farm, will be unveiled. This plaque and marble were procured by the Marlinton Rotary Club and other interested citizens of the Levels.
Editor;
I noticed the little photo article about the blacksnakes in the Times yesterday. I’d very much appreciate it if you would read the enclosed folder. I think that there is much ignorance and superstition about snakes here in Pocahontas County, perhaps due to a large number of rattlesnakes. But 99 percent of the snakes here are useful and beneficial creations of nature that do mankind only good. Particularly the black snake.
In the midwestern corn country, some farmers will pay $10 for a blacksnake pair to release in their barn. It is the cheapest means of rat control known, and the snake can get to the rats where poison and cats can’t go. I have a pair in my barn, which I rarely ever even see, and despite large amounts of exposed corn and grains, I see no evidence at all of rat or mouse troubles.
One day, about a year ago, one of my blacksnakes was sunning itself on the berm of the road in front of the barn when a man in a pickup driving by noticed it. This was a Sunday, and he took a loaded shotgun from next to him, stuck it out the window and blasted the snake. He then drove back and forth over it to finalize his deed, and waved a friendly hand to someone on the porch. He really thought he had done us a favor, and just did not know what he had done wrong – besides shooting from a car on a Sunday with a loaded gun kept in the car…
I just spent five years teaching something like 25,000 ghetto trapped children about nature and animals before coming to Poca- hontas County. I believe that all children should be taught the importance of snakes in controlling rat, mouse and insect population, and be made to know that snakes are clean, tamable, important works of God and that they deserve as much respect in our Earth’s chain of life as anything else.
A newspaper editor has a responsibility in educating the public as well as just printing news. I hope that you will reconsider your editorial policy about the killing of animals when it is not actual hunting, but just killing for the sake of creating death. That is a dangerous and immoral thing to approve of, or encourage.
I hope that you aren’t mad at me for writing you this letter, as it is meant in a friendly way. I do enjoy your paper and think that your preservation of hand-set print and old-time format is an important contribution to preserving America’s heritage.
Very Sincerely,
Peter Hauer
BIRTHS
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Smith, II, of Biloxi, Mississippi, a son.
Born to Mr. and Mrs. Philip Shafer, a daughter, Philissa Mary
DEATHS
Wallace Arlie Galford, 56, of Culpepper, Virginia. Mr. Galford was a farmer and a sawmill operator in Pocahontas County. Born at Dunmore, a son of Mrs. Ruth Hudson Galford McLaughlin, and the late Glen Galford. Funeral service from the Marlinton Presbyterian Church with burial at Fassifern Farm at Linwood.
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Henry A. Sheets, 67, of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, formerly of Green Bank, a son of the late David L. and Addie Gum Sheets. Funeral service from Green Bank United Methodist Church with burial in the Arbovale Cemetery.
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Martha E. Thomas, 93, of Elkins; born at Marlinton, a daughter of the late William and Emilee Johnson Irvine. Funeral service in Elkins, with burial in the Hunters-ville Cemetery.
