I ALWAYS COME ‘HOME’ TO MARTIN COUNTY

I have lived in Eastern Ky all of my life. I have resided in Martin County for most of it. I have traveled all from Florida to Canada and always come home to Martin County.

I graduated from Sheldon Clark High School and picked up some college hours at Prestonsburg. In high school,  I had Homer Marcum as a teacher. Across the hall from him was Mark Grayson. They would have a debate every day in the hallway. They took opposing sides each time. They started two newspapers in the county and continued their debates. Later both papers were bought and combined into one paper that we have today.

Homer left the county and Mark stayed. I still have contact with Mark. He reads a lot of my posts and comments on them. I wonder if he realizes how much an influence he and Homer had on my life and how it affects my writing today.

I traveled to Frankfort Thursday and met with a gentlemen from the Dept of A.M.L. and Belle Engineering Firm about the 3.4 million dollar grant for the county. We are at the fourth stage in the grant. Now the engineering firm has to design the project and then present it to N.E.P.A. and get their approval before we can turn it over to the Corp of Engineers for theirs. This will all take time. We learned that 4 of the 5 men that we met with was from Eastern Ky and were happy that we were getting help. The head of the Dept is a Martin County native, John Small.  Dennis Hatfield and Charles Snavely are also. This shows that people from Martin County and Eastern Ky shine when they are given an opportunity to.

I watched Joshua Ball give the presentation speech to the Tri-City Chamber of Commerce. It always excites me to see someone from our county doing good. He is a shining example of someone from Martin County.

We have several rising young stars with a lot of potential talent such as Cody Lowe, Kelsey Aleece, Angelina Presley, Annalyse and Josey Montana McCoy to name a few.

We have celebrated writers such as Rufus Reed and Lee Mueller.

We also have two very influential men in the county now with Jim Booth and Mike Duncan. Their lists of accomplishments would be too long and too numerous to list. They are not the only ones that has influenced this county and I realize that I am leaving so many out. Please add any to this list in your comments. I would never look over anyone on purpose.

Someone asked me the other day why the president’s children were coming to Martin County so often and I replied that I am surprised that more people don’t.