East Stone Gap School reunion planned July 10

East Stone Gap School Reunion

East Stone Gap School Reunion was postponed this year due to the Corona Virus.

This reunion is the longest running school reunion in the United States. Yes! Factual. This would have been the 95th year reunion!

Friday, July 10 at 1 pm a dutch treat luncheon will be held at the Country Kitchen located near Gilley’s Jewelry Store on Main Street in Big Stone Gap. This luncheon will honor three well known ladies in our area.

Seventy five years ago Myrtle Donelson Pippi and Mary Lou Lytle Townsend graduated from East Stone Gap High School.

Betty Hurd Cline is the oldest alumnus graduate. Betty graduated in 1942. Seventy eight reunions for Betty. She is 96 years old!

The menu on Friday is baked chicken and vegetables or you can order from the menu at The Country Kitchen.

A head count for anyone and their guest has to be known by July 9th.

You can contact Larry Rasnick at 276/524-1783 or Judy Tate Riggs at 276/393-3744.

Anyone who attended East Stone Gap School is welcome to attend.

4th of July Parade

Andover citizens are planning their annual 4th of July parade.

Louise Sampson is their Grand Marshall. She will be leading the parade riding in a vehicle. The youngsters will follow riding their bicycles. Who knows who will follow in the parade lineup. Come and join in the 4th of July fun.

I think it is the greatest thing I have ever heard, to see a community so close together and be able to celebrate a holiday event with a fun time.

Appalachia Lions Club

Attention all Appalachia  Lions Club members: at your July 9th, 7:00 pm meeting you will be having the honor of special guest speakers. 

The new district governor, Jean Cook from Wytheville and your past district governor, John Seaborn from Bristol will be installing your 2020-2021 officers for the new year.

You are very welcome to come and bring a guest. Please contact Lion Susie at 276-219-0449 by July 7th if you will be bringing a guest so she will know how much food to prepare.

Thank you and God bless.

Birthday Celebration

Bonnie Ireson’s children came back home to Appalachia on Sunday and brought food to eat dinner with their mom once again on her birthday at their homeplace.  A birthday cake was the dessert. It is a treat on any occasion for family to gather and spend time together. Bonnie had a good birthday.

50 Year Lions

Club Member 

Congratulations to Eddie Green, a 50 year member of the Appalachia Lions Club.

July 1st Eddie joined the club and has been faithful in all the projects the Lions have been involved in from selling brooms and mops, programs at the high school football games, helping people in need of seeing an eye doctor and purchasing new glasses.

Eddie has been a true Lion for 50 years. Congratulations Eddie Green and thank you very much.

Susie Richardson is very proud of Eddie and she was glad to make this public for all the readers to know.

Happy Anniversary

Happy wedding anniversary to Roy and Teresa H. Moore, former AHS students, now living in Georgia. Today, July 2 is the date of their anniversary.

Birthday Wishes

Friday, July 3 we all wish a very Godly, precious lady a happy birthday. Calaie Worley is this lady. This will be her first birthday without her loving and caring “June Bug”, Ray Worley, her husband of many years. He passed away in early Spring.

Saturday, July 4th a fire cracker was born and she is still alive and well, Ms. Marilyn H. Young. We all love you and wish you a very happy birthday and 4th of July also. Enjoy yourself.

Very Dear Friends

I was talking to a very dear friend, Naomi White last week and she loves to cook meals and share them with her family and friends. Naomi is in her early 90’s!

Last Sunday she prepared Sunday dinner and drove to her close friends home, Betty Long Myers. They enjoyed a great meal together with plenty of laughing and remembering all the road trips they have made together for church and for various clubs and volunteering at the hospitals. 

You always had food at the meetings they attended so this made it more enjoyable. They rode to church together each Sunday. They are and always will be close friends. As we age friends are a vital part of our life.

Inman Memories

I saw Susie Bufford Brooks and Linda Hall Stidham last week and talked with them briefly in a parking lot in Norton. My sister Leona and these two ladies were very close friends in school together. They were like the Three Musketeers! 

Seeing the two of them together made me think more of my late sister who has been gone 20 years now.

Lots of good memories of good times in Inman when I see people we grew up with. Life was simple but enjoyable and lovable.

The last of June when the miners were on vacation the Church on the Hill chartered a bus and took us on a Sunday school picnic! Now those were the days! Soda pop and watermelon the church furnished. Our moms cooked a dinner and it was all put together for everyone to eat. Now this is a great memory of a yearly event in Inman.

Good News

My niece, Karen VanWinkle  received a second great notice of her surviving the corona virus. The health department did a second test on her last week and she received a negative result.

We thank God He brought her through this ordeal.

Prayer Request

Gary’s niece, Gloria Hall is battling a very serious cancer. Her first chemo treatment is very strong. It is for two types of cancer, so two treatments were given. She is so sick.

Gary and I will go to Abingdon on Monday, July 6th to take her for her second treatments. I ask all our friends to remember her in your prayers. 

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to try to help with. What can we do? Pray and seek God for her.

Independence Day Celebration

Saturday we will celebrate another 4th of July, also called Independence Day. It commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which declared the original colonies to be free from British rule.

We always knew growing up we would have watermelon, cantaloupe, ice cream, hot dogs and last of all, “soda pop” which was a treat for everyone. At the old Appalachia High School football play ground games were played, horseshoe pitching greasy pig chase, greasy pole climbing trying to reach the top for the money. A rope pulling contest, egg toss, sack race and a softball game were played.

Lots of fun for everyone. A day of freedom to enjoy being together.

Electronics

We were at a large garage in Tennessee this week and as I sat in the waiting area I could not help but look at the crowd there.

They had masks on but I noticed everyone except me had a cell phone or a tablet and they never looked up from their screens.

Electronics has taken people away from one another. I am satisfied with the old home phone we have and I always check my answering machine when I get home.