A1 log onto for archive • gameS …matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/public/sites/470/assets/... · 2013-02-21 · The Mingo Career Cen-ter will be holding GED testing for candidates

Julia Roberts GoadStaff Writer

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Dorton man was indicted by the Pike County Grand Jury for the assault of a Kentucky State Trooper.

According to Common-wealth Attorney Rick Bart-ley’s office, Eric Bentley, 28, is accused of second degree fleeing police and third degree assault of Trooper Craig Hensley.

• Anthony Robinson, 30, of Marrowbone, was indicted for receiving sto-len property, two dirt bikes which had been stolen from Shelia Hopkins valued at over $500, and persistent felony offender.

• John Paul Charles, 50, of Freeburn, was indicted for fourth degree assault of Johnny Sherpinskas, third degree assault of Steven Mounts, a law enforcement officer, and damage of more than $500 of a vehicle.

• William Rose, 47, of Lookout, was indicted for possession of a controlled

substance, oxycodone, DUI and possession of prescrip-tion drugs not in a proper container.

• John Payne, 23, of Canada, was indicted for receiving stolen property, in complicity with juve-niles, electronic valued at more than $500 that had been taken from A Plus Rental, and criminal mis-chief and theft by unlawful taking, also in complicity with juveniles, in connec-tion with the destruction of property and theft of

Rachel Dove-BaldwinStaff Writer

CHARLESTON — After an incident occurred in his home county of Mingo that brought to light that the cur-rent West Virginia Statute regarding jury misconduct only carries a potential pen-alty of 10 days in jail and a $50 fine, West Virginia House of Delegates member Justin Marcum (D-Mingo, Logan) has introduced a bill (HB 2498) that would make it a crime (misdemeanor) for any person sitting on a grand jury to disclose the identity of an individual who will be or has been in-dicted for a crime.

Delegate Marcum be-lieves this bill will increase officer and witness safety, preserve evidence, and in-crease judicial efficiency.

“This bill is vital to pro-tect witnesses, victims, and officers. In Mingo County, during a recent drug round-up, a grand juror informed a criminal defendant who fled to Detroit, Michigan to avoid capture, while the oth-er two she gave a heads up to fled to Columbus, Ohio and to Kentucky,” stated Marcum.

“These careless acts put the lives of the arresting officers in danger, as well as uncover informants

and her fellow jurors.”“I am proud to sponsor

this bill which will create so many positives while helping fight our substance abuse problem in the state.”

The bill would make the crime a misdemeanor and penalties would include the juror facing a possible sentence of 30 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine, if con-victed.

Marcum is the lead sponsor on the bill while Delegates Tim Miley (D-Harrison), Kevin J. Craig (D-Cabell), Cliff Moore (D-McDowell), David G. Per-ry (D-Fayette), Eric Nelson (R-Kanawha), Michael T.

Ferro (D-Marshall), Ryan J. Ferns (D-Ohio), and Jeff Eldridge (D-Lincoln) voiced their support and are listed as co-sponsors.

Rachel Dove-BaldwinStaff Writer

WILLIAMSON — It didn’t take a Florida resident with roots in San Juan, Peurto Rico, very long to develop a vision and a plan af-ter arriving in Mingo County, and has sprang into action to provide a service to the community he feels was not currently available. The Gallery Thrift Store located at 223 Pike Street in Williamson opened its doors on Feb 1, and the owner is hopeful the public will take advantage of his line of products and reasonable prices.

David Solano, who was em-ployed as a graphic artist in Florida, made the move to Mingo County to act as a support system for his mother who resides in the Tug Valley area and who had gone through a difficult divorce. She found herself living on the street with nowhere to turn and no one to help, and contacted her son to see what could be done.

“I took the first flight available after I spoke with my mom to help her in whatever way I could,” stated Solano. “She was living in a shelter and after going through the proper channels, I got her moved into an apartment here in Williamson. Once that occurred, I

quickly realized that she had ab-solutely nothing she needed to set up household, such as appliances, furniture and household items.”

Solano remarked that without traveling at least 50 plus miles, it is extremely hard to acquire good

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Vol. 100, Number 41 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 50 cents daily

2 arrested on drug trafficking chargesChad AbshireStaff Writer

WILLIAMSON — A father and his stepdaughter were arrested Wednes-day night on drug trafficking charges.

Kenneth “Bear” Woods, 45, of Tay-lorville, and Corrina “Corkie” Smith, 32, of Varney, were arrested by mem-bers of the Mingo County Sheriff’s De-partment.

Calling it “a family affair,” Mingo County Task Force Commander, C.D. Rockel, told the Daily News that the pair had been indicted by the Mingo County Grand Jury earlier on Wednes-day. A total of 13 people were indicted,

with six of them being sealed and per-taining to drugs. Woods and Smith were two of the six sealed indictments.

Woods was charged with two counts of delivery of Oxycodone, a schedule II substance, and two counts of conspira-cy to deliver Oxycodone.

Smith was charged with one count of delivery of Oxycodone and one count of conspiracy to deliver Oxycodone.

Both were arraigned and lodged, as of presstime, within the Southwestern Regional Jail, in Holden.

Executing two indictments the day they were presented, Rockel said that he expected more drug trafficking ar-rests “in the immediate future.”

Joining Rockel and the MCSD in the arrests were Administrative Alterna-tive Response Officer, David Stratton, and Home Confinement Director, Kevin Wilson.

The commander also said that three people who were arrested as part of “Operation Zero Tolerance,” ear-lier this month would face additional charges from the grand jury. Names were not immediately available.

He also said that one of the people ar-rested in the massive round up, Jason Thompson, pleaded Wednesday to his charges and was sentenced by Judge Michael Thornsbury. Rockel said that Thompson received 1 to 3 years. Corrina Smith Kenneth Woods

photos by rachel dove-Baldwin | daily newsDavid Solano, the owner and operator of The Gallery Thrift Store located at 223 Pike St., in Williamson, is pictured assisting a customer who stopped by to look at items that are available. Solano is currently expanding his inven-tory to include a variety of furniture, appliances, baby furniture, household items and much more. The shop is open Monday through Friday from 9-5, and on Saturday from 11-5. The contact number for the business is 407-591-6277.

Thrift shop opens its doors

Marcum introduces grand jury bill

Justin Marcum

Pike Grand Jury indicts 19

Eric Bentley

Bob Scott takes the oath of office to the Pike County Tourism, Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

Pike County Tourism board appointment over objectionsJulia Roberts GoadStaff Writer

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — The Pike County Fiscal Court has appointed a new board member to the Pike County Tour-ism Convention and Visitors Bureau, over the objection of the Eastern Kentucky Chamber of Com-merce.

At the last meeting of Pike County Fiscal Court (PCFC), Bob Scott, a businessman from Blackberry, was nominat-ed and voted onto the Pike County Tourism Convention and Visitors Bureau board. The McCoy well, which fig-ures heavily in the history of the Hatfield McCoy Feud, is located on Scott’s property; Scott has allowed tourists to visit his home and the site.

Scott’s name was chosen from a list of three names sub-mitted by Pike County Judge Executive Wayne T. Ruth-erford. The Fiscal Court voted unanimously to approve Scott’s appointment.

However, after the vote, Eastern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce (EKCC) President Jared Arnett addressed the Court, saying the court had overstepped its bounds.

Pike County Assistant Attorney Roland Case explained

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2 ■ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 WILLIAMSON DAILY NEWS

George Michael Bowens Jr.

George Michael Bow-ens Jr., 35, of Mallory,

died Sunday, February 17, 2013.

Born on April 20, 1977, at Man, he was the son of George Michael Bowens and Ann Ellis Morrison

Friends may gather with the family at Eagle Sanctu-ary at Man on Thursday, February 21, after 6 p.m.

Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, February 22, at Eagle Sanctuary. Burial will fol-low in Highland Memory Gardens at Godby Heights of Pecks Mill.

Mounts Funeral Home, of Gilbert, is in charge of arrangements.

Obituary

CalendarFeb. 21

Stone Heritage will hold its regular monthly meet-ing at 6:30 p.m. in the Ap-palachian First Response conference room. Every-one is invited. Please bring candy and plastic eggs to fill for the annual easter egg hunt.

The Tug Valley Shrine Club will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Williamson Masonic Lodge. All members are in-vited to attend.

Feb. 21 - 22, 24ASEP coaching class

will be at Huntington High School for those interested in coaching a secondary school sport. Register at www.wvssac.org.

Feb. 22The Kentucky Blood

Center will conduct a blood drive from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. in the Pikev-ille Medical Center Atrium at 911 South Bypass Rd., in Pikeville. Each donor will receive a t-shirt and be entered to win a $50 Walmart gift card. For more information, visit kybloodcenter.org or call 800-775-2522.

Feb. 22, 25 - 28A parent workshop will

be held at Bevins Elemen-tary school at 2 p.m. for parents with upcoming Kindergarten students on Feb. 22. Bevins Elemen-tary School will hold Kin-dergarten Registration for the 2013-2014 school year during school hours from Feb. 25 through Feb. 28.

Feb. 25The regular board meet-

ing of the Housing Author-ity of Mingo County Board of Commissioners will be held at noon in the office at 5026 Helena Ave., Delbar-ton, WV.

Feb. 26 - 27The Mingo Career Cen-

ter will be holding GED testing for candidates who have pased the Official Practice Test. For more information, contact John Webb at 304-475-3347 ext. 13. To register for Adult Basic Education to take the Official Practice Test, contact Mary Oliver at 304-475-2022 or email [email protected]

Feb. 28The Williamson City

Council will conduct its regular monthly meeting at 6 p.m. in the council cham-bers of city hall. The public is invited to attend.

March 7Musician Doyle Dykes

will perform at 7 p.m. at the Rose G. Smith Theater as part of the Tug Valley Arts Council 2012-2013 program series. For more information, call 606-237-9800 or 304-235-3000.

March 16The Lyrick Talent Quest

will be held at the Moun-tain Arts Center in Pres-tonsburg, Ky. Registration is from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. and performances are from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. Guest admission is $11 and artist registration is $20.

The Disabled American Veterans Chapter #141, Belfry, Ky., and its aux-iliary, will have its regu-lar meeting at the Belfry Courthouse starting at 2 p.m. All members, and honorably discharged vet-erans, and their spouses, are invited to attend.

March 26 - 27

The Mingo Career Cen-ter will be holding GED testing for candidates who have pased the Official Practice Test. For more information, contact John Webb at 304-475-3347 ext. 13. To register for Adult Basic Education to take the Official Practice Test, contact Mary Oliver at 304-475-2022 or email [email protected].

April 4Pianafiddle, consisting

of Adam Degraff and Ran-dy Morris, will perform at 7 p.m. at the Mingo Cen-tral High School Theater as part of the Tug Valley Arts Council 2012-2013 program series. The duo’s performance will range from bluegrass to Bach. For more information, call 606-237-9800 or 304-235-3000.

April 23 - 24The Mingo Career Cen-


May 28 - 29The Mingo Career Cen-


OngoingA Circle of Parents meet-

ing will be held on the third Thursday of each month at 1 p.m. at Logan Street First Baptist Church. Meetings offer anyone in a parent-ing role to participate in a group meeting to exchange ideas, share information, develop and practice new skills and more. Contact David Bell for more infor-mation at 304-443-3041.

Mingo Extended Learn-ing Center is accepting applications for our Prac-tical Nursing Program for the Class of 2013-2014. Applicants must take and pass a pre-entrance exam to be considered for the program. Testing dates are March 5, April 9, and May 7. There is a $35 testing fee. For additional infor-maiton call 304 475-3347 ext. 16 or 29.

Mingo Extended Learn-ing Center is accepting applicaitons for the Medi-

cal Office/Accounting Pro-gram for the fall program. For additional information contact Alichia Marsico at 304 475-3347, ext. 25.

The Pike County Health Department is offering free diabetes management classes. There are various dates and times available including one Saturday during January 2013 at the Pike County Health De-partment. For more infor-mation, call Paula Comp-ton at 606-509-5503. Free diabetes self management classes are also offered to business and worksite well-ness programs.

Southside Elementary School will conduct a pre-school story hour program for children between 2 and 4-years-old and not cur-rently enrolled in school. For more information, call the school at 606-353-1284.

Narcotics Anonymous meets Sunday at 3 p.m. and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Harry L. Joyce Community Center.

The West Virginia Army National Guard is taking applications for qualified applicants only. Applicants must be between the ages of 17 - 35 unless they have prior military service. No drug violations of felonies, meet height and weight requirements, be a high school graduate, or have completed the ninth-grade. We offer up to $50,000 student loan repayment, state and federal tuition assistance, medical, den-tal and life insurance and a part-time career with the opportunity to become full-time. For more infor-mation, call recruiter SSG Donna Smith at 3047 201-3196 or email her at [email protected].

Workforce West Virginia will take all new unemploy-ment claims at its office at 300 Prosperity Lane, Lo-gan, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Please arrive 30 min-utes prior to complete an application. This does not affect the intenerate office in Williamson DHHR of-fice on Wednesdays from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m.

The Parsley Freewill Baptist Food Panty will continue to provide USDA commodities. The pantry gives out the commodi-ties once, monthly, on the fourth Thursday.

Mingo Extended Learn-ing Center (formerly Mingo Career and Tech-nical Center) is currently accepting applications for the Medical Office Tech-nology and Legal Office Technology programs for the 2012-2013 school term. For more information, call (304) 475-3347 ext. 25.

Hatfield and McCoy Feud descendants are be-ing sought for a special project by Leah Hatfield and Kim McCoy. Specifi-cally, only direct descen-dants of the feud still car-rying the last names of Hatfield or McCoy. Hat-fields may contact Leah Hatfield at 843-575-0594 or by email [email protected]. McCoys may contact Kim McCoy at 502-751-5200 or by email [email protected].

Operation Charity food pantry will distribute free USDA food from noon un-til 2 p.m. the last Friday of each month at the New Vision Assembly Church in Hatfield Bottom.

Gas leak reported before blast leveled restaurantBill DraperHeather HollingsworthThe Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A day af-ter a natural gas explosion leveled a popular restaurant, investigators raced to search the rubble and tried to understand how the blast hap-pened despite suspicions that flam-mable fuel had been leaking, maybe for weeks, somewhere in the busy outdoor shopping area.

Hours before the explosion, wit-nesses reported a strong smell of gas, and firefighters were summoned to the scene at one point but left with-out ordering an evacuation.

As the cleanup got under way Wednesday, search-and-rescue crews recovered a body, and the mayor wor-ried that the debris could be conceal-ing other victims.

Mayor Sly James declined to say whether the body was that of a man or a woman, though authorities had been looking for a missing woman who worked at JJ’s restaurant and had been seen there before the Tues-day evening blast. They previously said she was the only person still un-accounted for.

But James said at a news confer-ence that authorities could not be “100 percent sure” they had account-ed “for every single person that may have been at JJ’s when the explosion occurred.” The search started with-out a list of people who were in the building.

Crews using flashlights, cadaver dogs and heavy equipment were rushing to finish the search ahead of a winter storm that was expected to bring heavy snow.

The explosion occurred after a construction crew apparently struck a natural gas line, touching off a blast that could be felt for nearly a mile. It shattered glass in nearby build-ings and sent up an ominous smoke plume.

Fifteen people were injured. Six were still hospitalized Wednesday, James said.

People who live and work in the area reported smelling gas for some time.

Jeff Rogers was waiting at a bus stop down the street from JJ’s when the explosion knocked him and an-other man to the ground.

He said he had smelled gas — al-though “not strong” — at the inter-section for the past couple of weeks. Then the odor intensified Tuesday.

William Borregard, who lives with his sister and her fiancé in the apart-ment building nearest to JJ’s, said he had noticed a strange smell for weeks that had worsened in recent days. On Tuesday, they called the apartment manager.

“We said it’s very pungent, and you should come out here and check it out,” he said. “He came over and rapped on the door and said there’s nothing to worry about. Stay in your apartment. That was five minutes prior to the explosion.”

Dr. John Verstraete, a physician who works at a medical practice next to the restaurant, told The Kansas City Star that some office employees smelled gas for several hours Tues-day afternoon. The smell grew stron-ger through the day.

A gas company employee entered the building just before 6 p.m. and recommended evacuating.

The blast happened around 6 p.m. Tuesday, when the dinner crowd would have been filing into JJ’s and the many other restaurants in the up-scale Country Club Plaza shopping and dining district.

The restaurant was a fixture on the city’s culinary scene for more than 27 years. Locals knew it as a prime after-work stop, though it won a broader reputation after receiving consistent-ly high ratings from contributors to Zagat’s restaurant guides, both for its food and its long wine list.

Firefighters received a call about 5:15 p.m. that a construction worker had hit a gas line near the restaurant, and they conferred with employees of Missouri Gas Energy, which sup-plies the area.

It wasn’t clear Wednesday how hard firefighters or utility officials worked to evacuate the restaurant after gas was first noticed. Fire Chief Paul Berardi said the fire department deferred to the utility since it would have more expertise in assessing the seriousness of the situation.

Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline safe-ty consultant in Redmond, Wash., said federal law holds the utility re-sponsible for deciding whether to evacuate, but assessing the risk isn’t always easy.

Sometimes it’s difficult to deter-mine how much gas has been built up. And even highly trained people can underestimate the danger.

“I’ve seen people who work for gas companies and have gas sniffers, and their bodies are found in buildings,” Kuprewicz said. “There is some art and some experience and some train-ing in this stuff.”

The fire chief said the precise cause of the gas leak is still under in-vestigation.

A construction project had been going on across a narrow, one-way street from JJ’s for seven years. But it was not clear Wednesday whether that work was connected to the con-tractor that MGE said had been un-derground.

MGE planned to issue a statement later Wednesday.

The Missouri Public Service Com-mission, which oversees utilities, launched an investigation into the blast, dispatching five employees to the site.

Commission Chairman Kevin Gunn said preliminary information indicates that gas pipelines had been marked as required.

Investigators will look at whether MGE followed state rules in respond-ing to the gas leak reported before-hand. It could take up to six months before a final report is issued.

Rebecca Craven, program director for the Pipeline Safety Trust in Bell-ingham, Wash., said natural gas ex-plosions are “ridiculously common,” with 37 percent of the most serious incidents caused by digging damage.

“Distribution lines are everywhere in every big city,” Craven said. “They get dinged by construction folks or people putting in a new mailbox all the time.”

Smallest planet yet found outside solar systemAlicia ChangAP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES — Astronomers search-ing for planets outside our solar system have discovered the tiniest one yet — one that’s about the size of our moon.

But hunters for life in the universe will need to poke elsewhere. The new world orbits too close to its sun-like star and is too sizzling to support life. Its surface temperature is an estimated 700 degrees Fahrenheit. It also lacks an atmosphere and water on its rocky surface.

University of California, Berkeley as-tronomer Geoff Marcy, one of the found-ing fathers of the planet-hunting field, called the latest find “absolutely mind-boggling.”

“This new discovery raises the specter that the universe is jampacked, like jelly beans in a jar, with planets even smaller than Earth,” said Marcy, who had no role in the new research.

It’s been nearly two decades since the first planet was found outside our solar system. Since then, there’s been an explo-sion of discoveries, accelerated by NASA’s Kepler telescope launched in 2009 to search for a twin Earth. So far, 861 planets have been spotted and only recently have scientists been able to detect planets that are similar in size to Earth or smaller.

While scientists have theorized the ex-istence of a celestial body that’s smaller than Mercury — the baby of the solar

system since Pluto’s downgrade — they have not spotted one until now. Nearest to the sun, Mercury is about two-fifths the Earth’s diameter; the newly discovered planet and our moon are about a third the size of Earth.

The teeny planet was detected by Ke-pler, which simultaneously tracks more than 150,000 stars for slight dips in brightness — a sign of a planet passing in front of the star. The planet — known as Kepler-37b — orbits a star 210 light years away in the constellation Lyra. It’s one of three known planets in that solar system.

Discoverer Thomas Barclay of the NASA Ames Research Center in Northern California was so excited when he spied the moon-sized planet that for days, he said he recited the “Star Wars” movie line: “That’s no moon.” It took more than a year and an international team to confirm that it was a bona fide planet.

The discovery is detailed in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

Scientists are looking for an Earth-size planet that’s in the so-called Goldilocks zone — that sweet spot that’s not too hot and not too cold where water, which is es-sential for life, could exist on the surface.

While the newly discovered planet isn’t it, “that does not detract from the fact that this is yet another mile marker along the way to habitable Earth-like planets,” said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, who was not part of the discovery team.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 ■ 3WILLIAMSON DAILY NEWS

quality used items at a reasonable price, since there are a limited number of sec-ond-hand stores in the area. While on his mission to purchase the things his mother needed, the thought of opening a store in Williamson that would carry a line of mer-chandise including a variety of furniture, appliances, dishes, cookware, baby furni-ture, etc. gave him the ambition to put his plans into motion.

“Williamson isn’t a large city, but there’s still a lot of people here that are looking for items such as what I sale, and they have difficulty traveling elsewhere to find them and can’t afford to buy them new. I’m expanding my inventory each and ev-ery day and if someone is searching for a particular item that I don’t have, I’ll be

more than happy to attempt to find it for them,” stated the owner.

Solano also buys gold and silver at a fair-market price, and will also appraise antique items or collectibles for local residents. He is striving to create a warm, inviting atmosphere that has a vintage feel, and is hoping to get in contact with local artisans who would be willing to sale memorabilia and original works of art to him that that could be resold in his shop, and invites anyone that is interested to stop by and visit with him.

The Gallery Thrift Store is open Mon-day thru Friday between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., closed on Sundays. For additional information, you can reach Solano by calling his cell phone, 407-591-6277.

From Page 1

Shop

that Kentucky statute says tourism board members will be chosen from a list of three names submit-ted by “a local chamber of commerce. If none exists, one will be appointed by the chief executive officer representing local govern-ment.” That officer would be Judge Rutherford.

But the meaning of the term ‘local,’ as pertaining to a chamber of commerce, is at the heart of the mat-ter.

“When this commission was formed, there was a lo-cal chamber of commerce,” Case said. ,”I reviewed the facts as I understood them. I do not think there any longer is a local chamber of commerce, there is a regional chamber. My in-terpretation would be that there is not a local cham-ber restricted to represent-ing businesses in the juris-diction of Pike County.”

EKCC President Arnett told the Court his organi-zation is a local chamber, and as such has the right to submit names for ap-pointments to the tourism board, not Judge Ruther-ford, and that the EKCC is

taking legal action against Scott’s appointment..

“We believe we still are a local chamber of com-merce,” Arnett said. ”We represent 320 businesses in Pike County. Our of-fices and headquarters are less than a quarter mile away from the Pike County courthouse. The statute says a chamber existing within the gov-ernmental. territory, we are definitely in the coun-ty. From our chamber perspective, we believe this is outside the legal limits. I don’t know Bob Scott, I have great respect for him, its not that I have an issue with him. Its an issue of the law. The chamber gets to make its recommendations, we would like to protest that appointment, and we will be filing suit.”

The fact that EKCC rep-resents interests outside of Pike County, as well as the lack of representation of the eastern part of the county, was brought up by members of PCFC.

Deputy Judge John Doug Hayes pointed out that just under 200 of the EKCC’s 320 members are

from outside of Pike Coun-ty.

“If we had submitted the names of three members from Floyd County, under your theory, have been bound to elect, for the Pike County Tourism Commis-sion, a Floyd Countian?” Hayes asked Arnet.

“I think that would be a completely separate issue,” Arnet answered.”I don’t think so. They are not from Pike County. We pick Pike County businesses, and Pike County business people.”

When Hayes noted that EKCC did not exclusively represent Pike County businesses, Arnet said EKCC is the only organiza-tion that is in Pike County, representing Pike busi-nesses.

“I’m going to dispute that,” District Six Mag-istrate Chris Harris said. “The Tug Valley Chamber of Commerce represents a whole lot of businesses in Pike County, and Mr. Scott is a very active member of that chamber. For you to say that our EKCC is the only one that represents business in Pike County is not true, Mr. Arnett.”

Arent told PCFC that of 29 EKCC board members, 18 to 20 were from Pike County. But District Five Magistrate Hilman Dot-son noted that there is no representation from the eastern part of the county on the tourism board. He said the current attention to the Hatfield McCoy Feud necessitates repre-sentation from his part of the county.

“How many from our area, where the feud hap-pened?” Dotson said. “I know you don’t only rep-resent Hatfield McCoy. That’s one deal we are working on right now, try-ing to get some local rep-resentation. This is where it happened, and we would love to have somebody over there to step up to the plate and say we want our share of the recognition.”

Deputy Judge Hayes asked Arnet about the list of names if the names EKCC submitted for ap-pointment to the tourism board were all from Pikev-ille. Arnet said that two were, one was from outside city limits, but very close to the city of Pikeville.

“You did not submit a name from Pond Creek, you did not submit a name from Peter Creek or Black-berry.” Hayes said. “Until Mr. Scott was appointed there was no person from Pond Creek.”

Arnet countered that who was or was not ap-pointed was not at issue, what was at issue was the process by which Scott was appointed to the tour-ism board.

“Its the Chamber’s dis-cretion,” he said. “That’s the reason the statute was

written that way, so the business community has a voice representing the businesses of Pike County, which has gotten disqui-eted and has no voice. Had we had this discussion, it is not to say Mr. Scott would have not been on our list. But as it stands, our list was ignored.”

“We are asking for some-one to represent the back-side of the county, as its been known,” Magistrate Dotson said.

Case said the county stands behind its decision to appoint Scott.

“We will vigorously de-fend any lawsuit the cham-ber brings,” Case said. “I’m comfortable with my opinion, I assume your at-torney will be comfortable with his opinion. That’s the reason we have judges.”

From Page 1

Board

video equipment and coins from Pirate’s Cove Car Wash.

• Larry Brewer, 37, and Jo-etta Marcum, 29, both of Lovely, were indicted for theft by un-lawful taking of a vehicle from Straight Away Motors.

• Keri Blackburn, 25, of Cana-da, was indicted for four counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, fraudulent use of a credit card and theft by unlawful taking. Blackburn is accused of

writing checks in the amount of $150, $200 and $127.20 and us-ing a stolen credit card, all on the account of Roxie May.

• Kelli Sayers, 48, of Canada, was indicted for three counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument and theft by unlaw-ful taking in connection the theft of a purse belonging to Vir-ginia Cook and checks written on Cook’s account for $262.31, $347.68 and $1.67.

• Harlan Damron, 30, of Rob-inson Creek, and Angela Little,

34, of Virgie, were indicted for four counts of a forged instru-ment, checks written on the ac-count of Jimper Sturgill, in the amounts of $100, $250. $300 and $375. Little was also indicted for second degree persistent felony offender.

• Amy Adkins, 23, of Pikev-ille, was indicted for third degree burglary and theft by unlaw-ful taking in connection with a break-in of a building owned by Bert Hatfield and the theft of jewelry, checks and other items

valued at more than $500.• Michael Holbrooks, 19,of

Elkhorn City, was indicted for the second degree assault of Amy Holbrooks.

• Eric Bentley, 28, of Dorton, was indicted for tampering with a prisoner monitoring device.

• Charlene Chapman, 25, of Kimper, was indicted for criminal mischief in damages amounting to more than $500 to a trailer that belonged to Shirley Norman.

• Junis conway, 57, of Pikev-

ille, was indicted for misde-meanor theft by failure to make a required disposition of property valued at less than $550.

• Justin Conway, 32, of Helli-er, Harmony Pafford, 36, of Rac-coon, Roger Tibbs, 36, of Pikev-ille, and Batrina Sykes, 31, of Elkhorn City, were indicted for assistance program fraud.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: An indict-ment is merely an accusation and the defenant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.)

From Page 1

Indicts

Official: No sign Calif. gunman used drugsGillian FlaccusThe Associated Press

TUSTIN, Calif. — Au-thorities have identified a woman who was shot to death in a home in south-ern Orange County by a gunman who went on to kill two more people and injure at least three others in an hour-long shooting spree, a sheriff’s spokes-man said Wednesday.

The woman’s name and 911 calls of the inci-dent were expected to be released later in the day pending the notification of the woman’s family, said Jim Amormino, of the Or-ange County sheriff’s of-fice. She was 20 and lived in Orange County, he said.

The woman was the first of three people killed by 20-year-old part-time com-munity college student Ali Syed in a rampage that be-gan before dawn Tuesday and ended 25 miles to the north during the early morn-ing rush hour, police said.

Syed killed two more people during carjackings, injured at least three more and shot up cars zooming down a busy freeway inter-change before committing suicide with his shotgun as police closed in.

The shooter forced one

commuter stopped at a stop sign out of his BMW, marched him to a curb and shot him three times from behind shocked witnesses looked on, said Tustin po-lice Chief Scott Jordan.

The motive for the shootings remained un-clear Wednesday.

Syed had no criminal history and no history of mental illness or mental disability, said Lt. Paul Garaven, a Tustin police spokesman. An autopsy will determine whether Syed had any drugs in his system, but Amormino said no illegal drugs were found in the house and there are no signs he was using illegal substances.

His parents did not rec-ognize the woman who was shot to death in the Ladera Ranch home they shared with their son, he said. Police don’t know why she was there or how she got there, Amormino said.

“The only two people who knew are, unfortunate-ly, dead,” he said.

Syed’s parents rushed outside and called police at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday after hearing the gunshots, but Syed had already sped off in his parents’ black SUV.

From Ladera Ranch, the gunman headed north and

pulled off Interstate 5 in Tu-stin, about 20 miles away, with a flat tire, police said.

A man who was waiting in a shopping center park-ing lot to carpool with his son saw Syed had a gun and tried to escape in his Cadillac, Jordan said. Syed ran after the car as it drove away and fired his shotgun through the back window, striking the driver in head but not killing him.

The driver “noticed that he was loading his shotgun, so he simply gets back in his car and tries to escape,” Jordan said. “He’s driving through the parking lot trying to get away and the suspect is actually chasing him on foot, taking shots at him.”

Syed then crossed the street to a Mobil gas sta-tion, where he approached the driver of a pickup who was filling his tank and asked for his keys, Jordan said.

“He says something to the effect of, ‘I’ve killed somebody. Today’s my last day. I don’t want to hurt you. Give me your keys,’” the police chief said. “He hands over the keys and he gets in the truck and leaves.”

Syed got back on the free-way, where he pulled to the

side of the road at the busy I-5 and State Route 55 in-terchange and began firing at commuters, Jordan said.

One driver was struck in the mouth and hand, pos-sibly by glass shards. He didn’t have a cellphone, but was able to drive home and call police. Two other cars were hit but their driv-ers weren’t injured, Jordan said.

“All of this is happening so quickly,” he said, esti-mating that Syed shot at drivers from the side of the freeway transition for about a minute.

The shooter then exited the freeway in nearby Santa Ana but ran the curb and got his car stuck, authori-ties said.

He approached Melvin Lee Edwards, of Laguna Hills, who was on his way to a gear manufacturing business in Santa Ana that he started with his father and brothers nearly 40 years ago.

Syed shot Edwards three times, including in the back of the head and the back, Jordan said.

Onlookers “tried to get away. They saw what was going on, they tried to get away and they called po-lice,” he said.

NCAA sues over Pa. law to keep PSU fine in stateMark ScolforoThe Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The NCAA wasted no time in challenging a new Pennsylvania law de-signed to keep the $60 million Penn State fine over the Jerry Sandusky scandal in the state, filing a federal challenge to the legislation hours after Gov. Tom Corbett signed it into law Wednesday.

State and congressional lawmakers have objected to use of the NCAA fine to finance child abuse pre-vention efforts in other states.

The complaint asks a federal judge to throw it out, saying the Pennsylvania Institution of Higher Education Monetary Penalty Endowment Act vio-lates provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It also asks for an injunction to prevent the law from being en-forced.

The defendants in the lawsuit are Corbett, the state’s auditor general, treasurer and the chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and De-linquency.

Penn State signed a consent decree last summer in which it agreed to the fine, a four-year bowl ban and other penalties shortly after a scathing report into how school officials handled reports that San-dusky was behaving inappropriately with children.

“By seizing the funds and restricting eligibil-ity to benefit from the funds only to Pennsylvania programs benefiting only Pennsylvania residents, the act will defeat the consent decree’s plain terms and frustrate the parties’ intended purpose,” the NCAA’s lawyers wrote.

From Front...

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Editorial

I stepped down from teaching the couple’s Sunday School a few weeks ago. I had really prayed about it and felt it was time. God was so good to show me clearly.

I gave our last lesson a lot of thought and prayer. I wanted to leave them with the best one ever. “Who’s in Your Basket?” was it. (It was a ser-mon my pastor preached two decades ago and I’ve never forgotten it!) We studied Acts 7 about Saul and how he had persecuted, even killed Christians. We covered his being blind, and Ananias coming to him, re-luctantly. The end-and main focus-was where Saul’s fol-lowers had to lower him in a basket over the city wall in chapter 9.

The guys who lowered the basket had no idea what Saul was going to become or that his name

would be changed to Paul. They had no clue that he would be one of the greatest evangelists who ever lived. They didn’t know he would stand before kings and share Jesus Christ or that he would write most of the books of the NT.

The only thing they knew was that this new brother needed them to hold the rope of the basket

to save his life. He couldn’t get out by himself. He needed their help. Paul was in their basket not forever but for a short time. As Christians, we have people in our baskets every day. We don’t know what they will end up doing or becoming…but it’s our job-for a season-to hold their rope maybe for a moment, a week, month or a year.

I shared a story that hap-pened two days before. My dear friend, Tanya, and I had gone to Sam’s

in Proctorville, Ohio for church supplies. We almost ate in Proctorville, but mo-seyed on to Huntington. We almost ate there, but then de-cided to go to the Chick-fi l-A in Ashland. We couldn’t fi nd it-our phones wouldn’t pull up the info-so we pulled in to another restaurant. When we went in, a hostess asked us to follow her to a table, but just when we got there, she stopped, turned around and yelled to someone that she was taking us to *Mary. It was weird. Everyone there heard and knew Mary would be taking care of us.

After being seated in a booth on the other side of the room, a young woman came to take

our order. We asked her about some items on the menu, and which was better, the Chicken Tortilla Soup or the Potato Soup. Without looking up from her tablet, she grunted, “I don’t know. I don’t eat either one.” Tanya placed her order, as did I and Mary left. I thought to myself, “She doesn’t love her job.”

When our food came, I no-ticed that Mary had a rubber bracelet on that had a date ending in

“2012”. You don’t wear a bracelet with a date on it un-

less something big has hap-pened. I reached up and touched the band asking what it meant. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the next part…

In one breath, Mary said, “My son was killed in a car accident. It was on a road he had never

driven before. He was in a hur-ry and his girl-friend told him to take a short cut. He was 18.” I was

shocked! I thought of was MY son whom I love so much!

She continued, “It hap-pened in December. I got these bracelets to help raise money.” She

showed us several pictures of him. It had only been three weeks! How awful! I was cry-ing with my hand over my mouth. She left to check her other tables.

We sat in our booth, stunned. And I knew be-yond a shadow of a doubt that she was in our basket. I felt my coat pocket. I always carry Bible verses with me but couldn’t fi nd a single one. They were in my other jacket! I have to tell you that I felt like I had gone into battle without my armor on!

I wondered out loud, “What am I going to do?” I knew this was a divine ap-pointment! And then it hit me…I have Bible verses in my heart…and also in my cell phone! I asked Tanya for pa-per and pen and jotted down some of my favorites: Prov-erbs 3:5-6 about trusting in the Lord. Then Deuteronomy 31:6: Be strong and coura-geous. Do not be afraid…for the LORD your God goes with you…plus eight other verses that were encouraging.

When Mary returned, I tried to talk without crying. I told her that we almost ate in Proctorville, then in Hun-tington, and almost at Chick-fi l-A, and even when we came in, we almost ate at someone else’s table. I continued, say-ing I felt like we had come to her restaurant because we were supposed to meet her. Her eyes were wide as she listened. With tears in my eyes, I handed her the page with all the verses on it, en-couraging her to keep them forever. I also cautioned her-even though she didn’t know me-that she had a huge hole in her heart and to be careful what she fi lled it with. Mary reached out to hug me! We cried together and I promised that we would pray for her.

Tanya gave her our church name and phone number and encouraged her to call if she ever needed to.

We left the restaurant feel-ing like we had been on a mis-sion. For less than an hour, God had put a young lady in our basket. Like the guys who held Saul’s rope, we might not ever see her again. But for that time…we held the rope as if our life depended on it.

Think about it…who has God put in YOUR basket? Let’s get blisters on our hands from holding the rope!

I found out later that the Chick-fi l-A was just over the hill from where we ate.

*Name changed

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4 ■ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2013 WILLIAMSON DAILY NEWS

EditorialWho’s in your basket?

And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name“And whatsoever ye shall

as in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorifi ed in the Son” (John 14:13)

Jesus had told the dis-ciples that He was going to die and He comforted them by telling them not to let their hearts be troubled. He was going away to prepare a place for them, and He would come back and take them to be with Him.

Jesus answered them that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father, and He would do what-ever they would ask in His name. If they were obedi-ent and did what He com-manded, He would ask the Father, and He would give them another Comforter, that He might be with them forever, the Spirit of truth.

He shared with the dis-ciples that the world cannot

accept Him, because it nei-ther sees Him nor knows Him. The disciples will know Him; for He dwells with them, and shall be in them.

The Com-forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father, will send in Jesus’ name, shall teach them all things, and will remind them of all Je-sus had said to them.

As we read the account of Jesus’ last meal and special time with the men He had been with for three years, who had willingly left their homes and families to fol-low Jesus, the shock of

the words He spoke to them must have seemed unreal to them. They were no doubt fearful and confused, even though He spoke words of comfort and assurance to them.

Jesus knew that in less than twenty- four hours He will be on the cross. His last

words speak of all the re-sources that will be at their disposal after His depar-ture. They will be indwelt and empowered by the” Spirit of truth”. (14:12-18)

May we remember that as believers we have the same resources and with

the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and empowered to do work God has called us to do; we can be the wit-ness who honors and glori-fi es His holy name. Praise you heavenly Father!

Poem: The Lord made known to the disciples,

That whatever they asked in His name,

He would answer their prayer,

That the Father may be glorifi ed which is His aim.

So may we come boldly to the throne of grace,

Trusting the Lord to do what He has said,

That the Father may be praised,

As by Christ we are led.Prayer: Dear Father ,

help us to be faithful follow-ers that honor and glori-fi ed and honors you by all we say, do and think. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

A step in the right directionGovernor Earl Ray

Tomblin’s State of the State address was a step in the right direction for the state of West Virginia.

The Governor stressed something very important to me and my fellow resi-dents of Mingo and Logan County: ensuring our stu-dents get the education that they deserve. Making sure students have the necessary tools to learn to read and providing oppor-tunities for every student who wants to go to col-lege or vocational school are policies both the Gov-ernor and I share.

Teachers have always been an integral part of our commu-nity, and as such, it is very important to me that teachers receive the proper certifi cation and education to allow them to provide the proper education

to our children. Gover-nor Tomblin made these remarks Wednesday night and I fully intend to back them in order to protect our teachers and children.

In the Governor’s ad-dress, prison overcrowd-ing was also a major point. The Governor has created a plan that will help reduce over-crowding by reducing recidivism and increasing public safety. These pro-posals the Governor has made will save the state over $116 million over the next six years.

Also in his State of the State address, the Governor stressed the importance of the mining indus-try and mine safety programs. Both the Governor and I understand the importance of the coal industry to this

country and this state, and I can assure you that I will work to make sure this valuable industry will not be crippled. With that being said, I am proud to announce that I have introduced a bill to provide penalties for any person who trespasses with the specifi c in-tent to shut down an active mine site.

I have an immense amount of faith in our Governor. I believe that his balanced budget will steer the great state of West Virginia in the right di-rection. If you should have any ques-tions or comments regarding any issues or bills before the legislature please feel free to contact me.

Both Delegate H.K. White and I will continue to fi ght for southern West Virginia and we look forward to hearing from you.

To write me, my address is Delegate Justin Marcum, State Capitol, Building 1, Room 224-E, Charleston, WV 25305. Or you may call me at (304) 340-3126. I encourage all my constituents to remain active and become part of the legisla-tive process.

■ An Upward Look

■ Family Life

Mae Stallard

Justin MarcumWest Virginia

Delegate (D-Mingo)

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A4 ■ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2013 WILLIAMSON DAILY NEWS

Editorial

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Investing in our futureGov. Earl Ray Tomblin

On Wednesday, I delivered the annual State of the State Address. I presented the budget and announced a number of legislative proposals. While we have a lot of work ahead of us, I’m very excited about the opportunities the upcom-ing legislative session holds for our state.

This time last year, it was projected West Virginia would have a $400 million budget gap for the upcoming fiscal year. I asked each state agency to do more with less-and they did. I’m proud to say, the budget I presented is balanced - with no new taxes or cuts to education or public safety programs.

As you know, I’m from Chapmanville in Logan County, a coal town where hard work and long hours provides many families with good incomes. My parents saw to it that I received a great education in high school and at WVU and Marshall. I was the first person in my family to receive a college degree. And I believe every child in West Virginia deserves this same opportunity-the opportunity for a bright future. That is why I presented a number of proposals to improve our state’s education system.

I asked the Legislature, as well as the State Board of Education, to consider a number of key changes. I’d like to see all elementary school teachers receive the train-ing they need to help our children become great readers because statistics show reading is critical for success. I asked the Legislature to give more flexibility to local school boards; they need the flexibility to tailor programs to the needs of their students. I also asked for a number of changes to make sure that technology is integrated into curriculum and that our students have access to counsel-ing from our community and technical colleges. All of the proposals I made had one thing in common: they all focus on what’s best for our kids.

It’s no secret that West Virginia’s correctional system is overextended, and I’m working to help lessen that bur-den. Statistics now show the number of people in our prisons is increasing at three times the national average. Last year, I brought together my colleagues in the Leg-islature, as well as judges, prosecutors, state and local leaders and research professionals as part of an effort to find a solution for our outdated and overcrowded prison system. The Council of State Governments has succeed-ed in increasing public safety and reducing recidivism in states like Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio so I asked them to help me construct a plan-keeping public safety as our number one priority. What we learned was simple: sub-stance abuse is the root cause of prison overcrowding, and the high re-offending rate intensifies the problem. I’m presenting a plan to the Legislature to address these chal-lenges. I believe we must take action, now, to ensure we increase public safety and reduce habitual offenders.

During my Address, I also introduced a new initiative-an initiative to make sure West Virginia has a drug-free workforce. Building a workforce that is not only educat-ed, but clean and sober is very important. Beginning this week, West Virginia will carry the message “If you get high, you won’t get hired.” I’ve setup a website: www.fac-eyourfuturewv.com. The website has resources for folks needing help, drug-free West Virginians looking for work, and employers who are looking for drug-free workers. I’m very excited about this new program, and I hope you will join me in this effort to ensure West Virginia has a drug-free workforce.

We’ve made a lot of progress in the past few years, and I’m looking forward to working with the 81st Legislature to make West Virginia an even greater place-today and long into the future.

Sen. Joe Manchin

Manchin’s Message: from the Hill to the Mountains

Some of us have been around long enough to remember when our coun-try first figured out it was time we stop relying on other countries for our energy needs. It was in 1973. An Arab oil embargo sent shock waves through the U.S. economy with gas prices soaring from 39 cents to 56 cents a gallon. Then-President Nixon proposed “Project Independence” as the first step in kicking America’s oil import habit.

Forty years have come and gone since then. And in that time our po-litical leaders have argued non-stop about what to do, even as we have fought wars over oil that have cost us billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to make America energy independent.

Well, I’ve got a simple answer, straight from the mountains of West Virginia – we use all of our domestic energy resources to meet as much of our energy needs as possible. Oil, coal, natural gas, geothermal, nucle-ar, biomass, wind, solar, hydro – we use anything and everything we’ve got, even as we develop new energy sources.

That’s just common sense. That’s just West Virginia common sense. Ob-viously, West Virginia is best known as a coal state. But in our state, we’re using every energy source we have. West Virginia is the example the whole country should follow.

The fact is it is more important now than ever before that our country achieve energy indepen-dent. Not only is afford-able abundant energy the key to America maintain-ing its leadership in the global economy of the 21st century. But to be truly secure as a nation, we cannot be hostage to the political whims of en-ergy producing countries that do not share our val-ues and certainly do not wish us well.

As a member of the Senate Energy Committee, I have concentrated on helping our country develop a realistic and responsible energy policy – an “all-of-the-above” policy – so we don’t ever have to de-pend on getting energy from other countries and paying their jacked-up prices.

I understand the pain that West Virginians feel at the gas pump. I feel it, too. That’s why it’s always been important for me to do everything I can to ease that pain. That’s why I introduced the Americans Alter-native Fuels Act with Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to put the brakes on the federal government buying alternative foreign fuels that end up costing us more.

That’s also why I was pleased that IGS Energy CNG Services has plans to invest in building natural gas refu-eling stations along the I-79 corridor

from Charleston to Pitts-burgh. To be energy inde-pendent, we must contin-ue promoting the use of West Virginia based fuels for our cars. It is cleaner, more affordable, and will be a shot in the arm for our economy by creating new jobs right here in our state.

It just doesn’t make sense that we are import-ing billions of dollars of foreign oil every day when we have such an abundance of natural gas right under our feet.

This week, I was proud to take over the chairmanship of the Sen-ate’s Energy Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining because it gives me the opportunity to push even harder for an “all-of-the-above” energy policy.

The Subcommittee chairmanship also gives me the chance to serve and represent West Virginia on issues critical to our great state because the subcommittee oversees activities that West Virginians care about a lot – mining policy, mining education and research, public lands and wild-life refuges.

I’m confident that if we work to-gether and use our common sense, we can develop a strong bipartisan energy plan that will not only break the power of oil producing countries but will also chart a new and promis-ing energy future for America.

Making America energy independent

ARH addresses Medicaid MCOAs members of the

Medical Staff Leadership Council for the hospitals that comprise the Appala-chian Regional Healthcare (ARH) system, we want to make you aware of the hardships that threaten both our patients and our ability to adequately oper-ate practices and provide timely care since the Ken-tucky Medicaid program was switched on Novem-ber 1, 2011 to the current Medicaid managed-care system.

Since the managed-care system went into effect, we now must juggle our responsibility to provide care to our region’s most vulnerable citizens while restructuring the opera-tion of our practices to accommodate lengthy wait times for our patients brought on by compli-cated, time-consuming pre-approval processes for routine procedures. Collec-tively, we are now seeing a significant increase in de-nied patient claims, delays in payments in excess of 90 days, and increases in un-paid accounts receivables amounting to millions of dollars.

Many of our patients are very ill and have sadly been taken on an emotion-al roller coaster ride as the Managed Care Organiza-tions (MCOs) administer-ing the Medicaid plan have negotiated contracts with providers only to sever those agreements just months into the contracts. This has forced our pa-tients to endure additional worry as they have had to go through the process of changing their MCO plans multiple times just to be able to continue to receive care from their longstand-ing provider located within their local community.

When the state changed to the managed-care sys-tem, it was under the con-dition that the three MCOs chosen to administer the Medicaid program would provide members with lo-cal access to care through an adequate patient care network of providers. Un-fortunately, due to these broken contracts with area providers our patients have now been assigned to man-aged-care plans that do not have adequate networks to provide the healthcare ser-vices needed.

Two years ago a Medic-aid patient could go to any hospital in the state for treatment. Today, a Med-icaid patient in Eastern Kentucky is lucky if there is even a hospital in their county or a neighboring county where their Medic-aid managed-care plan will authorize them for needed treatment. When you call for precertification autho-rizations you are calling a call center and most of the time they don’t understand healthcare or care about the patient. The process is time consuming and lengthy, it requires one member of your staff to deal with these issues only.At ARH alone, authoriza-tions are often taking as long as two days for MCOs to approve a procedure as simple as an X-ray.

The truth is the majority of the time you get a denial or additional information is needed. This may re-quire the patient to have to come back on another day which results in delays and additional problems. Our patients are having to sit in our waiting rooms longer and sometimes must be told to go back home until we can get authorization from their MCO to per-form the procedure they

need. These patients have limited financial resources and issues with transporta-tion already. If the patient has to make arrangements with one of the area’s few public transportation com-panies for a return appoint-ment, they may not be able to get transportation on the day needed, which creates an additional hard-ship on the patient and the doctor. Sadly, many of these patients do not make the trip back to our office, but rather wait until their medical condition worsens to the point that they must receive emergency care in a hospital setting.

These hardships do not disappear after the patient is treated. Prescribing the medications they need has also become an increasing-ly difficult process. In the beginning, a list of medica-tions covered by the MCOs was provided, but since the time most of those medica-tions have been deleted resulting in doctors having to substitute medications with something that is cov-ered or a generic. We as physicians should be able to treat our patients and prescribe the medications they need to get better. We do not want a call center making these decisions for us. Unfortunately, the Med-icaid managed-care plan in Kentucky is not working and is simply unfair to the poor and disabled patients it was created to protect. The patients that are af-fected by these changes are among our region’s most vulnerable - they are very ill or do not have the finan-cial means to travel out of their community to find an MCO-approved provider. Most importantly, they should not be expected to carry a larger burden than patients with the same

conditions who are fortu-nate to have jobs providing commercial insurance.

Our patients need timely medical care not delays. We encourage the state of Kentucky and the Centers for Medicare and Medic-aid Services to take a step back and re-evaluate the current state of the Ken-tucky Medicaid program to ease our patients’ ability to receive care and to bring about a timely process for authorization and payment to the providers who work diligently to keep these pa-tients healthy.

Sincerely,The Appalachian Re-

gional Healthcare Medical Staff Leadership Council and other members of the Eastern Kentucky medical community: Syamala HK Reddy, MD, Ophthalmol-ogy, Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center Bradley Moore, DO, Family Prac-tice, McDowell ARH Hos-pital and the Family Care Clinic – Wheelright Maria Hortillosa, MD, Anesthe-siology/Family Practice, Middlesboro ARH Hos-pital Bethany Lucas,MD, Family Practice, Morgan County ARH Hospital Sandesh R. Patil, MD, Cardiology,Whitesburg ARH Hospital Roy Var-ghese, MD, Emergency Medicine/Internal Medi-cine, Mary Breckinridge ARH JD Miller, MD, In-ternal Medicine, Mary Breckinridge ARH Fares J. Khater MD, Internal Medicine, Whitesburg, Ky Mansoor Mahmood, MD, Internal Medicine, South Williamson, Ky Charles E. Johnson, MD, Pediatrics, Williamson ARH Hospital Jose M. Echeverria, MD, Internal Medicine, Harlan ARH Hospital

Melissa Cornett, ARH Communications

Letter to the Editor:

Oracle of Omaha: Billionaire knows where to put his money

Warren Buffett is a pretty smart businessman. That’s why the multibillionaire investor, who battles with his pal Bill Gates for the distinction of being the wealthiest man in America, is so revered by those who dabble in the stock market.

Buffett doesn’t make many bad investments, which is why other investors follow his actions closely. So where is Buffett putting his money these days? He’s investing in newspapers.

Last year he paid $200 million for his hometown news-paper, the Omaha World Herald. But he isn’t stopping there. He is now in the process of buying 63 more news-papers owned by Media General for $142 million.

Already the owner of the Buffalo News and a major stockholder in the Washington Post Co., where he has served on the board of directors, Buffett knows some-thing about the business of print.

As he seeks to increase his newspaper holdings, Buf-fett isn’t interested in acquiring the Los Angeles Times or Chicago Tribune. He is looking for a certain type of news-paper – the community kind. They have to serve smaller markets, Buffett says, “where there is more of a feeling of community.”

People in smaller communities are very connected to their newspapers. That’s because those newspapers are well connected to their readers, and what they are inter-ested in. As usual, Warren Buffett has hit the nail squarely on the head.

David Hedges, Publisher

Dawn ReedGuest

Columnist

Cajun singer does it allBREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Yvette

Landry sings like a gutsy gal who is sick and tired of being sick and tired. World-weary, rode hard, un-lucky in love and life, jaded. The words are full of easy-loving and hard-drinking.

It’s standard country fare, K.T. Oslin meets Gretchen Wilson.

But it’s wise not to confuse Yvette’s original songs with Yvette the person. If you only read the re-sume, you might expect to meet a dilettante. Except Yvette isn’t dab-bling, she’s conquering worlds, sometimes two or three a day.

A teacher, single mom, author and classically trained pianist who somewhat by chance ended up playing bass guitar with several famous Cajun bands, these days Yvette has turned her dead-eye sights on country.

A mutual friend introduced me to the music. It is industri-al-strength, my brand. Later, when Yvette invited me to her grandparents’ house that she renovated for an amazing craw-fish breakfast she cooked, I thought of another singer, Patti Austin, who brags in song: I can cook, too, as well as the rest….

Yvette’s newest country CD is “No Man’s Land,” the aptly named album from a female’s perspective, a hard-bitten female who has about had it with men. “I’d Love to Lay You Down,” for instance, talks of laying her man down in “a house with no windows, about six feet under the ground sounds good to me.” That kind of thing.

Again, the cynical songs sound nothing like the cheerful for-mer beauty queen dishing up etouffee and explaining herself in a modest, funny way. From a family of musicians, she played piano and woodwinds through high school but preferred sports. After school, she abandoned music.

Years later, when her father had brain cancer and she stayed with him a lot, the athletic Yvette had to find a substitute for the competitive volleyball that had been an outlet for her ener-gy. She bought a bass guitar. It was off to the races. She’s spent years playing with the best Cajun bands: Lafayette Rhythm Devils, Balfa Toujours and the all-female group Bonsoir, Catin.

What’s new, at least only three years old, is the songwrit-ing part of the equation. That, even for enthusiastic Yvette, once seemed formidable. And then at a songwriting course she took in her “spare time,” an instructor unlocked the secret: “All you’ve got to do is just pay attention.”

While camping, she started thinking about how today’s chil-dren didn’t stay and play in the woods. She put her thoughts down on paper, picked up her acoustic guitar and “Where Memories Are Gold” became her first original song and wound up on her first solo album, “Should Have Known.”

That album sent her to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and created national buzz. “The songs just come, I don’t know from where,” she says. “The other day I was cook-ing, and I had to stop and grab my guitar. I ended up with a song and burnt meat.”

That supper was a rare failure. Her new children’s book, “The Ghost Tree,” already is selling well, and Yvette somehow juggles a solo career, her Cajun bands, mothering her teenaged drummer son Trevor and teaching. She even teaches univer-sity courses in songwriting and signing for the deaf.

“My grandmother used to tell me I had to slow down, make choices,” she says. “I never could.”

Some hope she never does.

Rheta GrimsleyJohnson

Syndicated Columnist

■ An Upward Look

Dwell together in unity“Behold, how

good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in uni-ty!” Psalm 133:1

When we be-come a part of the Christian fellowship, the Lord expects us to live together in unity. We are part of a fam-ily of believers of God with those who do not know him. Although we may differ in some matters, we all believe in God, and that He gave his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sin. We also believe that He died and rose from the grave. Because He lives, we all have hope of eternal life through faith in Him.

This belief creates a bond of love between Christians that allows us to be as one in Christ. We can agree to disagree about church poli-cies, because these do differ, but that does not keep us

from being able to stand with other Christians in honoring the Lord.

We can see how Chris-tian churches throughout our area come to-gether to dwell in unity, to pray for each other, to share common needs. This is what the Lord would have us do. Praise His

Holy name.Poem: The Lord expects

his peopleTo live in harmonyTo be concerned with

each others’ problemsTo dwell together in unityAnd when we fail to do

thisWe dishonor our LordFor he would have usTo be in one accordDear God, May we dwell

together in peace and love because this is pleasing in your holy spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen

Mae Stallard

Always an election going onOne of the interesting

factors in political con-sulting is that it is a con-tinuous cycle. I have often had people ask me, “what do you do when there’s no election going on?” The simple fact of the matter is that there is always an election going on.

Even when there is no imminent balloting on the horizon, preparations and plans for future elec-tions cannot be started too early, in my opinion.

Actually, a candidate, his consultants and sup-porters can often be more effective in the “off-sea-son” than during a clearly visible elec-tion cycle.

An example of that axiom can be il-lustrated by one of the best “trinket” handouts I ever discovered for can-didates. Placing the local high school and/or college athletic schedules on magnetic cards is a powerful tool for any candidate.

Even in an election year, booster or-ganizations will welcome a candidate to the sideline to hand out the sched-ules since most parents and grandpar-ents want them. Fans stick the sched-ules on the side of refrigerators and other metal appliances to remind them of when Little Johnny or Little Susie will be playing.

Such schedules routinely include the date of the upcoming election. Thus, the entire Local High School schedule is printed and then it notes, “May 7 - vote for John Doe for Congress.” It’s a campaign piece that will be kept and serves as a constant reminder of the candidate who provided it.

Yet, I have found that the schedules are more effective in off-years, when the future candidate is not obviously campaigning for office. If the future candidate has a law office, insurance business or such, he or she can distrib-ute the schedules in an off-year with great success.

This is not designed to circumvent campaign finance laws but, rather, sub-tly implies to fans that John or Jane Doe is a big supporter of their team even when he or she isn’t running for office. Then, when he or she hands out schedules during an election year, they do not think of it as simply an effort to win their votes.

Of course, candidates who have “pre-filed” for the next election can put their disclaimer on the cards in qn off-year but that simply is not as effective.

The great politician is the one who is a genuine “people person” and never stops “campaigning” 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

* * * * * *

With some folks, like former Governor Arch A. Moore, Jr. and current Unit-ed States Senator Joe Man-chin, smiling, waving and being friendly just come nat-urally. Others have to work diligently to appear gregari-ous and a few just can’t quite master being outgoing.

During the presentation last week of the state’s teach-er of the year award in the governor’s reception room, I noted that former State Sen-ator Lloyd Jackson had, typi-cally, made his way off into a corner where he chatted with one person. That is how Jackson always has behaved

in public. Perhaps he is actually an in-trovert. He certainly is no back-slapper.

Jackson’s father and former state senate president, “Big Lloyd” Jackson, now deceased, was a back-slapping, talk-to-everyone in the room politician. Not so with the son, even when he was running for governor in 2004. Jackson was no match for everybody’s best buddy, Manchin.

Jackson, whose political career col-lapsed when he championed high school consolation in his native Lin-coln County, is now a member of the state school board.

* * * * * *Another Arch Moore truism al-

ways rings out when one considers West Virginia’s chief executives. Of one of his successors (some jest that those who have sat in Moore’s chair since he left state government are “imposters” rather than successors), Moore said, “he forgets he is gover-nor all the time.”

Moore told me West Virginians ex-pect their governors to act like gov-ernors all the time — not just during office hours or emergencies. “You can’t put on blue jeans and a flannel shirt and head to the nearest bar on Saturday night,” the governor said.

* * * * * *I learned more about politics from

Moore than any other human being. He is an absolute political genius and one of this state’s greatest assets.

It was Moore, the state’s best-known Republican in 50 years, who often looked at me and said, “Ron, you know what happens when we get all the Republicans together? We get beat, that’s what.”

* * * * * *Names other than those listed here

last week are being tossed about in legislative halls as possible can-didates next year. One prominent name that I left out last week is Kanawha State Senator Erik Wells, who is giving serious consideration to a congressional run. Wells, a Dem-

ocrat, might just be a bit too liberal for the district seat being vacated by Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who is running for the United States senate in 2014.

Still, Wells, husband of Secretary of State Nattalie Tennant, would be a formidable force in the field. His can-didacy might persuade several other Democrats not to run.

* * * * * *Last week, I mentioned the defeat

of former house of delegates member Larry Barker when he sought re-elec-tion in Boone County last year.

The comments caused several readers to note that Barker appar-ently moved to South Carolina im-mediately after the election.

That caused some to speculate that Barker might not have stayed in the house, even if re-elected, since he has moved out of the district. I pointed out that residency never bothered former House Speaker Bob Kiss very much or ex-house member Lidella Hrutkay.

While both of those Democrats would likely dispute residency re-marks, it was well known that both Kiss and Hrutkay lived in Charleston while representing faraway districts. The late Democrat Dale Martin, who represented a Putnam County dis-trict, was alleged to live in Charles-ton as well for a few years.

* * * * * *There is speculation that another

former legislator, Democrat Greg Butcher, has moved since the last election. Butcher left Logan County and moved to Alum Creek in Lincoln to run for magistrate. He lost that bid and, most say, has moved back to Lo-gan eyeing another possible run for office from there.

* * * * * *Finally (are those sighs of relief I

hear?), redistricting the legislature sometimes spawns peculiar results.

The new plan that was implemented in balloting last year managed to give a small community like Alum Creek two representatives in the house of del-egates. Democrat Jeff Eldridge lives on Coal River Road in Lincoln County’s Alum Creek and his fellow Democrat, Josh Stowers, lives on the same Alum Creek road.

For those unfamiliar with it, Alum Creek is basically a suburb of Charles-ton/South Charleston, located just off Corridor G (United States Route 119) about five miles from the Southridge shopping complex. It is unincorpo-rated but has a population exceeding 1,300.

It is safe to say the interests of Coal River Road, Alum Creek, should be greatly protected when 1/50th of the house of delegates lives there.

Ron GregoryGuest

Columnist

ADVERTISEMENT

2/7,14,21,28

Notice is hereby given that Rawl Sales & Processing Co., RT 49 Coal Miners Way, Matewan, WV 25678 has a permit on fi le with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the surface mining of approximately 8 acres and has submitted an application to the DEP, 1101 George Kostas Drive, Logan, WV, 25601, for renewal of Article 3 Permit Number O507892 to maintain a coal haul road and bridge.The operation is discharging into the Tug River of the Big Sandy River and is located .5 miles, southeast of Rawl in the Tug River District of Mingo County, Longitude 82° 11’ 45” and Latitude 37° 37’ 38” (Coordinates from USGS Topographic Map).Surface of the area associated herewith is owned by: Lauren Land Company- P.O. Box 830, Belfry, KY 41514.And the mineral associated herewith is owned by: No Mineral Removal Involved.And the mineral within 100 feet of the permit area is owned by: No Mineral Removal Involved.

Surface of the area within 100 feet of the permit area is owned by: Lauren Land Company- P.O. Box 830, Belfry, KY 41514, Rawl Sales & Processing Company- P.O. Box 722, Matewan, WV 25678, Jimmy Murphy- P.O. Box 71, Sprigg, WV 25693, and Norfolk & Western Railroad Co.- 800 Princeton Ave., Bluefi eld, WV 24701. Written comments and/or requests for an informal conference of the permit renewal application shall identify the applicant and application number and will be received by the Permit Supervisor at the DEP address above until March 30, 2013, or thirty (30) days from the date of fi nal publication. A copy of the application will be available for review until March 30, 2013, or thirty (30) days from the date of fi nal publication in the DEP Regional Offi ce located at the address above AND in the Mingo County Clerk’s Offi ce(s) during normal business hours.

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NationPentagon notifies Congress of likely furloughsRobert BurnsAP National Security Writer

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress on Wednesday that if automatic government spending cuts kick in on March 1 he may have to shorten the workweek for the “vast majority” of the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian workers.

They would lose one day of work per week, or 20 percent of their pay, for up to 22 weeks.

Panetta also said the across-the-board spending reductions would “put us on a path toward a hollow force,” meaning a mili-tary incapable of fulfilling all of its missions.

In a written message to em-ployees, Panetta said that he notified members of Congress Wednesday that if the White House and Congress cannot strike a deficit reduction deal before March 1 to avoid the fur-

loughs, all affected workers will get at least 30 days’ advance no-tice.

The furloughs would be part of a broader plan the Pentagon is preparing in order to cut $46 billion through the end of this budget year, which ends Sept. 30. More cuts would come in future years as long as the au-tomatic government spending cuts, known as sequestration, remained in effect.

“In the event of sequestration we will do everything we can to be able to continue to per-form our core mission of pro-viding for the security of the United States, but there is no mistaking that the rigid nature of the cuts forced upon this de-partment, and their scale, will result in a serious erosion of readiness across the force,” Pa-netta wrote.

Adding his voice to the budget debate, Secretary of State John Kerry said the fiscal impasse is a

serious threat to American cred-ibility around the world.

“Think about it: It is hard to tell the leadership of any num-ber of countries that they must resolve their economic issues if we don’t resolve our own,” Kerry said Wednesday in a speech at the University of Virginia.

Panetta was flying Wednesday to Brussels to attend a NATO de-fense ministers meeting. Spokes-man George Little told reporters en route that Panetta would tell his counterparts that across-the-board budget cuts will hurt not only the U.S. military but also the ability of NATO to respond to crises.

Little said the Pentagon is also discussing the possibility of not being able to send military units on planned rotations to various places around the world. In an-ticipation of cuts, the Pentagon has already decided not to send one aircraft carrier back to the Persian Gulf, reducing the U.S.

presence there to one carrier.Pentagon officials have said

their furloughs would be struc-tured so that nearly all 800,000 civilian workers lose one day of work per week for 22 weeks, probably starting in late April. That means they would lose 20 percent of their pay over that pe-riod.

The Pentagon has begun dis-cussing details of the furloughs with defense worker union offi-cials.

President Barack Obama has exempted military personnel from furloughs.

House Speaker John Boehner put the blame on Obama and said he agrees with Panetta that automatic spending cuts would devastate the military.

Boehner released a copy of Pa-netta’s letter formally notifying Congress that the Pentagon will have to consider furloughing a large portion of its civilian work-force if sequestration kicks in.

“The furloughs contemplated by this notice will do real harm to our national security,” Panetta wrote in his congressional notifi-cation letter, adding that it would make troops less ready for com-bat and slow the acquisition of important weapons.

“Overall, sequestration will put us on a path toward a hollow force and inflict serious damage on our national security,” Panet-ta wrote.

The only civilian Pentagon workers who would be exempt from furloughs would be Senate-confirmed political appointees such as the defense secretary and deputy defense secretary, as well as a relatively small num-ber of workers deemed essential to protect the safety of defense property and personnel.

Panetta said the administra-tion is still working with Con-gress to avoid automatic budget cuts by reaching agreement on a deficit reduction plan.

BP civil settlement remains elusive as trial nearsMichael KunzelmanThe Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Justice Department and the five Gulf coast states affected by a mas-sive oil spill nearly three years ago have indicated they would like to settle their environmental and economic claims with BP PLC ahead of a trial sched-uled to start next week.

The problem is that they haven’t been able to agree on the possible terms of such an agreement. Months of negotiations have failed to resolve lin-gering differences — not just with the London-based oil giant, but among themselves.

The Justice Department convened a meeting with Gulf Coast state officials in Washington late last week in an effort to hammer out an offer to resolve the outstanding civil claims, but an agreement wasn’t reached, said a person familiar with the negotia-tions. The person spoke on condition of anonymity be-cause the discussions were confidential.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said reaching a settlement that satisfies all states’ competing interests has been difficult.

“We just want to make sure we get our fair share,” he said. “We had more eco-nomic damage than prob-ably any state because of the loss of all the tourism we had in 2010. So it’s very important that the people of Alabama are compen-sated for the losses related to the oil spill.”

Bentley said representa-tives of his office attended the meetings in Washing-ton last week, but he de-clined to comment on the talks.

“We are ready to go to trial,” he said Wednesday.

An 11th-hour settlement still could be reached be-fore the trial starts Mon-day — or even after it has begun — but it is not surprising that a deal has proved elusive thus far in such a complex case, said David Uhlmann, a Univer-sity of Michigan law pro-fessor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes sec-tion.

“It’s extraordinarily dif-ficult to negotiate any type of multiparty settlement, particularly when the sums involved reach into the tens of billions of dol-lars,” he said. “The stakes are high. There are a lot of competing interests. Dif-ferent parties may have dif-ferent incentives to settle.”

BP faces penalties un-der the Clean Water Act ranging from $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion, based on the government’s estimate of how much oil spilled into the Gulf. Among the company’s motivations to settle before a trial would be to avoid the higher end of that range, which U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier could impose if he ruled

the company acted with gross negligence before the well blowout on April 10, 2010, that triggered an explosion, killing 11 workers and spawning the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. With so much money at stake, “It’s a high-stakes gamble to go to trial,” Uhl-mann said.

BP didn’t participate in last week’s talks, and pledged this week to take the case to trial. In a state-ment released Tuesday, the company’s general counsel, Rupert Bondy, said BP has been open to settlements on “reasonable terms” but was “faced with demands that are excessive and not based on reality or the merits of the case.”

In its most recent quar-terly earnings report, re-leased earlier this month, BP said state and local governments have formal-

ly presented the company with more than $34 bil-lion in claims. The report claimed those figures are inflated and based on “se-riously flawed” methodolo-gies.

A key sticking point among the states them-selves has been decid-ing how much money BP would pay in Clean Water Act penalties and how much it would pay through the Natural Re-source Damage Assess-ment process. The NRDA process, authorized by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, only funds environ-mental-restoration proj-ects and uses scientific research to assess spill damage and decide how to fix it.

A settlement that fun-nels more money into NRDA projects could mean a greater share of

the funding would flow into Louisiana, which bore the brunt of the spill’s ecological impact.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last week, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., urged the Justice Department not to settle with BP over Clean Wa-ter Act penalties without agreeing on NRDA pay-ments.

Louisiana officials, however, don’t appear to be uniformly in favor of a NRDA-heavy approach to a settlement. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., joined senators from other Gulf states in signing an Oct. 5, 2012, letter to the White House that ex-pressed “grave concerns” about a settlement that would boost NRDA pay-ments at the expense of Clean Water Act penal-ties.

Anti-theft trade strategy announcedNedra PicklerThe Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Obama administra-tion announced a broad new effort Wednesday to fight the growing theft of American trade secrets following fresh evidence linking cyber-stealing to China’s military.

The plan includes a new diplomatic push to discourage intellectual property theft abroad along with better coordination at home to help U.S. companies protect themselves. The ad-ministration says indications are that econom-ic espionage is increasing, not only through electronic intrusion over the Internet but also through the recruitment of former employees of U.S. companies with knowledge of inside trade information.

“Trade secret theft threatens American busi-nesses, undermines national security and places the security of the U.S. economy in jeopardy,” said a report from the White House. “These acts also diminish U.S. export prospects around the globe and put American jobs at risk.”

Earlier this week, a Virginia-based cybersecu-rity firm, Mandiant, accused a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai of years of cyberat-tacks against more than 140 U.S. companies. The accusations and supporting evidence in-creased pressure on the United States to take more action against the Chinese for what ex-perts say has been years of systematic espio-nage.

The Chinese government denied being in-volved in cybertheft, with China’s defense min-ister calling the Mandiant report deeply flawed. China’s Foreign Ministry said that country has also been a victim of hacking, much of it traced to the United States.

Wednesday’s Obama administration report did not specifically target any one violator, but the China problem is evident in the case stud-ies it cited. Those examples did not involve cyberattacks, but rather the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in trade secrets by former employees of U.S. corporations including Ford Motor Co., DuPont Co., General Motors Corp., Cargill, Dow Chemical Co., Valspar and Mo-torola.

President Barack Obama signed an execu-tive order last week aimed at helping protect the computer networks of American industries from cyberattacks. It called for the development of voluntary standards to protect the computer systems that run critical sectors of the economy such as the banking, power and transportation industries. It directed U.S. defense and intel-ligence agencies to share classified threat data with those companies.

He also prodded Congress during his State of the Union address to go further.

“Now, Congress must act as well by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter at-tacks,” Obama said.

The president said America’s enemies are “seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions and our air traf-fic control systems. We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.”

The new report was short on specific conse-quences for trade secret theft, with no new fines or other trade actions announced. It included five actions to protect American innovation:

— Applying diplomatic pressure by senior of-ficials to foreign leaders to discourage theft.

— Promoting best practices to help indus-tries protect against theft.

— Enhancing U.S. law enforcement opera-tions to increase investigations and prosecu-tions.

— Reviewing U.S. laws to determine if they need to be strengthened to protect against theft.

— Beginning a public awareness campaign.

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DAILY NEWSTHURSDAY,

FEBRUARY 21, 2013 SportSTug Valley smacks HuntingtonKyle LovernSports Editor

HUNTINGTON — Tug Valley may just be a small Class A school from ru-ral Mingo County. But on Tuesday night they went to the city of Huntington and showed they are one of the best teams in the state regardless of classification.

The Panthers smacked the Highlanders 69-55 to wind up their regular sea-son at 19-3.

Tug Valley, ranked No. 1 in the small school’s class, won the AA title last year. Many thought they

could have won the Triple A championship. Even though they lost some players off of last year’s team due to graduation, the Panthers have contin-ued to excel this season.

They dominated the Class AAA No. 9 High-landers (14-6) at their own gym. On Saturday they de-feated Triple A Logan.

“They kicked our butts,” HHS coach Ron Hess told a Huntington newspaper. “It’s troubling anytime you get beat like that, but here we are at the end of the year and you think that you’re peaking, we’ve got

to get back in here tomor-row and get back to work.”

The Panthers came out with guns blazing, jump-ing to a 23-9 lead over the Highlanders by the end of the first quarter.

“I think our ability to get out quick on them really set the tone for us,” said Tug Valley coach Garland “Rabbit” Thompson.

Tug Valley forced some early turnovers that led to some easy baskets for the Panthers. Tug Valley was in control early and never looked back.

“We have three great guards in Mikey New-

some, Austin Brewer and Aaron Muncy,” Thompson added.

Brewer dished out 13 assists for the Panthers. Thompson said he was his team was able to get some passes down low to low post players Thomas Bais-den and Corey Dillon for easy shots.

Newsome led the Pan-thers with 17 points. Dillon had 13 points, while Bais-den banked in 12. Brewer and Hayden Sturgell each added eight points, while Muncy chipped in seven.

Tug Valley’s fans out-numbered Huntington

High’s by about a 2-1 mar-gin, even though the game was played on the High-landers home court.

The Panthers played their JV players for the fi-nal minutes of the game.

Anthony Meadows led the Highlanders with 12 points. Arick Nicks scored 10 points for HHS.

Score by quarters:TVHS … 23 18 12 16 -69HHS … 9 10 10 24 - 55Scoring:Tug Valley - Newsome 17, Dillon 13, Bais-den 12, Brewer 8, Sturgill 8, Muncy 7, S. Marcum 2, Copley 2.Huntington - Meadows 12, Nicks 10, Dunn-Martin 6, Tubbs 8, Pennington 7, Miller 5, Howard 4, Demoss 2, Wooding 1.

Lady Panthers crush Lady Generals 58-32Kyle LovernSports Editor

NAUGATUCK — Mont-calm was no match for the Lady Panthers of Tug Val-ley in their Class A sec-tional game on Wednesday night as they crushed the Lady Generals 58-32.

Tug Valley jumped out to a 20-9 first quarter lead and led 41-13 at the half outscoring the visitors 21-4 in the second.

Sophomore point guard Adreana Vance scored 18 first half points, includ-ing 13 in the first quarter. She had three 3-pointers. Junior Hannah Armstrong had 11 in the first half and senior Amber Linville scored nine for TVHS.

Tug Valley took a com-manding 50-15 lead with 4:00 left in the third quar-ter. They led 54-19 after the third quarter.

With 3:00 left in the game they had a 30-point lead at 56-26.

Vance ended the game

with 22 points. Armstrong finished with 16, while Linville added 13 for coach Okey Smith’s team.

Miranda Kendrick led Montcalm with 13 points.

Tug Valley made 22 field goals, including four 3-pointers. They shot 10-17 at the free throw line for 59 percent.

The Lady General were 9-16 at the line for 56 per-cent.

Tug Valley will now play for the Class A, Region 3, Section 1 championship Thursday night as they host the Lady Hillbillies of Man. The two teams split their regular season con-tests.

Score by quarters:MHS …. 9 4 6 13 – 32TVHS … 20 21 13 4 – 58Scoring:Montcalm – Kendrick 13, Bouldin 2, Tyree 6, Kelly 6, Johnson 4, Coleman 1.Tug Valley – Linville 13, Evans-Kirk 3, Vance 22, Griffith 0, Robinson 0, Baisden 4, Runyon 0.(Kyle Lovern is the sports editor for the Williamson Daily News. Comments or story ideas can be sent to [email protected])

Mingo Central shoots down PioneersKyle LovernSports Editor

WAYNE — The Mingo Cen-tral Miners shot down the Wayne Pioneers 75-45 Tuesday night in a Cardinal Conference game. The contest was a make-up of a game that had been postponed because of inclement weather a couple of weeks ago.

Mingo Central took a 21-6 first quarter lead and led 41-16 at the half.

“We jumped out early and pushed the ball,” said Miner’s coach Brad Napier. “We got some transition baskets. Our defense was good in the first half. We held them to just 16 points.”

Several players saw action in the game for Mingo Central. Re-

serve guard Mallie May had his best game of the season with 10 points. Alex Lee and Marqus Cun-ningham each scored 11 for the Miners. They helped control the boards early in the game.

Matt Lester added eight points, while Austin Banks scored seven for MCHS. Zack Barker and Dalton Hatfield each scored six points, while Julius Hatcher and Garth Simpkins added five each. Stevie Hammond rounded out the scoring with five points.

Alex Elkins and Joel Watts led Wayne with 12 points each. Brett Justice scored 11 for the Pioneers.

Mingo Central winds up its reg-ular season tonight as they travel to Herbert Hoover for another make-up game.

The Miners, now 12-9 (7-5 in

the conference) will start Class AA sectional tournament play next Tuesday taking on Scott at the Logan Fieldhouse. That game will be the second of a double-header and is scheduled to start at 8 p.m.

The first game will be Tolsia playing the winner of the Wayne-Chapmanville play-in game which is scheduled for Saturday night. That contest is slated to begin at 6 p.m.

Score by quarters:MCHS … 21 20 22 10 - 75WHS … 6 10 16 13 - 45Scoring:Mingo Central - Banks 7, Lester 8, Lee 11, Hatcher 5, Cunningham 11, Hammond 4, Barker 6, May 10, Simpkins 5, D. Hatfield 6.Wayne - Egnor 1, Elkins 12, Justice 11, C. Queen 2, Watts 12, B. Queen 2, Wickline 5.

Corey Dillon scored 13 points to help the Panthers defeat the Highlanders.

Kyle Lovern/WDNMingo Central senior point guard Austin Banks (4) is shown in action earlier in the season. The Miners won a Cardi-nal Conference game at Wayne on Tuesday night. They play at Herbert Hoover tonight, which will be the last regular season game of the year.

Kyle Lovern/WDNTug Valley sophomore guard Adreana Vance goes in for a layup during sectional tourney action against Montcalm Tuesday.

Cal Ripken Baseball registration

Sign-ups for the Cal Rip-ken and Babe Ruth Base-ball League will be held at Brother Reid Park on Saturday and Sunday from now through the month of March. Saturday registra-tion will be from 12 noon to 5 pm and on Sunday from 1-5 pm. Ages are from 4 to 15 years of age. Anyone in-terested in coaching or um-piring should attend one of these sign-ups. Children can play up a division based on parent’s discretion. Regis-tration fees are $40 for the first child and $30 for any additional child. It is $50 for children playing in the 13 to 15 year old age group.

Williamson Midget League Football

The Williamson Midget Football League will be holding a coaches meeting on February 23 at 10 am

in the hospitality room at the Williamson Fieldhouse. Commissioner Lori Phil-lips encourages coaches and anyone interested to attend.

Tug Valley Baseball Board Umpiring ClassThe Tug Valley Baseball

Board will soon be conduct-ing a baseball umpiring class for the upcoming season. Call Ray Ellis at 304-946-8103 for more information.

Logan Madness Basketball

TournamentThe ninth-annual tourney

is set for April 19-21 at Lo-gan. There will be divisions for boys and girls teams. For more information con-tact Mike Tothe at 304-239-2565. (Sports Calendar is a service of the Williamson Daily News. If you have submission for the calendar send it to [email protected])

Magic remembers Jerry BussEAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) —

Magic Johnson is one of the most successful athletes on and off the field of play, winning titles in the NBA, col-lege and high school and making mil-lions in business.

The Hall of Fame basketball player and an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers said he lost a lot with the death of Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

“He made me the man I am today,” Johnson said Tuesday night, a day after Buss died. “Forget just the bas-ketball player, but the man that I am. I

owe a lot to Dr. Buss.“I think the reason I own the Dodg-

ers today is because of Dr. Buss and his expertise of giving me sound busi-ness advice and making sure I took care of my money and things of that nature.”

Johnson spoke to reporters about Buss before working as an analyst for ESPN when No. 4 Michigan State hosted top-ranked Indiana.

Flacco to meet with RavensBALTIMORE - The Baltimore Ra-

vens and Joe Flacco’s agent plan to

meet this weekend in their first at-tempt to reach a new contract for the Super Bowl MVP.

Joe Linta will be in Indianapolis at the NFL’s scouting combine for the first negotiations since August. After the team and Flacco couldn’t agree on an extension or a new deal last sum-mer, Flacco played out the final year of his rookie contract — and struck it big.

He led the Ravens to the AFC North title, then to playoff victories over In-

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dianapolis, Denver and New England before beating San Francisco in the Super Bowl.

Jets: What to do with Sanchez, Tebow

NEW YORK (AP) — As the New York Jets began their salary-cap purge, they still faced their two most difficult offseason decisions: What to do with Mark San-chez and Tim Tebow.

The Jets cleared about $31 million in salary cap space by cutting veteran linebackers Bart Scott and Calvin Pace and three other players. Safety Eric Smith,

backup offensive lineman Jason Smith, and tight end Josh Baker also were released. The moves were expected because New York entered the offseason more than $20 million over the cap for the 2013 season.

They were the first sig-nificant personnel decisions made by new general man-ager John Idzik, who was hired to replace the fired Mike Tannenbaum last month.

Posey gets huge salary increase

NEW YORK (AP) — San Francisco catcher Buster Posey received the steepest increase among players in

salary arbitration this year.According to a study by

The Associated Press, the 133 players who filed last month gained an average increase of 119 percent. No cases went to a hearing for the first time since arbitra-tion began in 1974.

Posey, the NL batting champion and MVP, led the way with a 13-fold hike to $8 million.

Other big rises were ob-tained by Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters, an 11-fold in-crease to $5.5 million. Cin-cinnati pitcher Mat Latos enjoyed a 10-times increase to an average of $5.75 mil-lion as part of a two-year deal.

From Page 6

Briefs

Mingo’s Jason Smith to fight for state boxing titleKyle LovernSports Editor

MADISON — Live pro-fessional boxing returns to the Madison Civic Center on Saturday, March 9 and Mingo County native Ja-son Smith will be fighting for a state title.

The 7th installment of the King of the Coal Fields Boxing series presented by Black Eye Promotions will be headlined by a state title fight between Logan’s Jason “Coalfield Cobra” Smith versus Morgan-town’s Eric Watkins for the W.Va. light-heavyweight championship.

This belt has been va-cant since 1987 and was last held ironically by now W. Va. Athletic Com-missioner Steve Allred, a Boone County native. Many people feel this will

be the fight of the year in WV as it features 2 of the top pound for pound fight-ers in the state.

The event will feature 10 professional bouts and a hand full of amateur contests. Nearly all of the fighters are from the southern WV area. Fea-tured local fighters such as Greg Maynard, Warren Browning, Zack Kuhn, Austin Marcum, Jon Hill, Josh Stepp, Matt Garret-son, and Don Pennington assure the event will be a packed house.

With a great line up of fighters on both sides of the card this looks to be a very competitive and excit-ing event. Anticipation has spread through the box-ing community of W.Va. as many out of the area fans have already purchased tickets and look to flood

the coal fields on March 9th. This type of event is rare in WV and especially in southern W.Va.

Most pro boxing events feature 1-4 pro fights with a large number of amateur bouts.

This is likely the only event in the state this year that will feature double digits of pro bouts. There is no one more excited about the event being held in Boone County than the promoter of the show who also resides in Boone County.

“The team at Black Eye has been working on this show for more than a year. I would like to thank every-one who has been a part of the creation of this event. This is the best event we have ever put together and it’s not even close. I’m ex-cited as a fan of the sport,”

the promoter said.Boxing has been revital-

ized lately in our state over the past couple years and especially in the coalfields where pro boxing had been non-existent. The KOTCF series has already visited Logan, Madison, Charles-ton, and Williamson and will invade Bluefield in April.

This event is sponsored by Hill Chiropractic, Cook and Cook Law Firm, Boone Memorial Hospital, and Quality Metal Roofing. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advance by calling 304-785-9124.The Doors open at 6pm and the fights start at 7.

(Kyle Lovern is the sports editor for the Williamson Daily News. Com-ments or story ideas can be sent to [email protected])

Jason Smith

Submitted Photos/Jenta Sartin CheungTug Valley honored their senior basketball players last week. Pictured above, left to right, Co-rey Dillon, Aaron Muncy, Mikey Newsome and Austin Brewer. Their parents are standing behind them. The four seniors hope to lead the Panthers back to the state tournament again this March.

The only two senior members of the Lady Panther squad at Tug Valley High School were hon-ored last week. They are Whitney Evans-Kirk, left, and Amber Linville, right. They are shown with their parents.

Tug Valley recognizes seniors

Reds giving Frazier chance to start at 3BGOODYEAR, Ariz.

(AP) — With one impres-sive season, Todd Frazier has gone from last player cut in spring training to first in line to take over as the Cincinnati Reds’ start-ing third baseman.

Frazier led the Reds in spring training last year with five homers and 15 RBIs, but was the last player sent to the mi-nors at the end of camp. Injuries to the bullpen prompted the Reds to add a reliever, and Frazier was the one to go.

When backup infielder Miguel Cairo was injured in April, Frazier was called up and had a sensa-tional rookie season. He finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year voting after batting .273 with 19 homers and 67 RBIs, the second-highest total for a rookie.

Third baseman Scott Rolen turned down the Reds’ offer to attend spring training and fill a backup role this year. Fra-zier is now the starter.

“Frazier is in a totally different situation than he was last year at this time,” manager Dusty Baker said.

“We hoped that he

would be in this situation. He’s paid his dues. He’s earned his way, which is what you like a young man to do.

“In the world of give-aways, we give them a lot, but he’s earned it.”

The 27-year-old infield-er spent the offseason get-ting better at third base. He played shortstop at Rutgers, so third base is still something of a new position. He started 73 games at third base while Rolen recovered from injuries last season, and 39 games at first base af-ter Joey Votto tore knee cartilage. He also started seven games in the out-field.

Frazier’s biggest chal-lenge at third is to get

quicker with his initial move toward the ball.

“I told him to go home and work on his lateral range and first step, and he did it,” Baker said. “I suggested that he go home and take ballet. I don’t know if he went that far but I can see improve-ment.”

Frazier didn’t take bal-let, but he worked with Ed Hefernan, a track coach near his home in New Jersey.

“It took me a couple weeks, but we finally fig-ured out the right drills, to change from the ‘la-di-da’ move to ‘boom!’” Frazier said. “I’d hop over these little links — left, right, left, right — then I’d run after a ball he rolled. He timed it and once we got a time he liked, we’d do it over and over.”

He did other drills as well to improve his first step. One drill involved tying a string to his feet.

“I complained to him a couple times,” Frazier said.

“I told him, ‘You’re mak-ing all this stuff up.’ He is old-school and would tell me to quit my whining. He put the pressure on me which I needed.”

Todd Frazier

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LEGALS

NOTICE OF SALE (A) REALESTATE UNDER A DEED OFTRUSTBY SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE,AND (B) OF A MOBILE HOMEBY SUCCESSOR TRUSTEEAS AGENT FOR SECUREDPARTY

Notice is hereby given that byvirtue of the following deed oftrust:

1. Deed of Trust dated the 6thday of October, 2003, made bySamuel Barker and WendyBarker, his wife, to Greg K.Smith, Trustee, for the benefitof Community Trust Bank, Inc.,which deed of trust is of re-cord in the Office of the Clerkof the County Commission ofMingo County, West Virginia,in Trust Deed Book No.363, atPage 062, Christopher J. Ply-bon having been named assuccessor trustee by instru-ment of record in the aforesaidClerk's Office in Trust DeedBook 421, at Page 015.

2. Security Interest of Bank ina 1999 SOUE FH 28 x 64double wide manufacturedhome, West Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation, Divi-sion of Motor Vehicles Identi-fication Nos. DSEAL14166aand DSEAL14166B, Title No.AH50237, granted by SamuelBarker and Wendy Barker, hiswife, evidenced by the lien ofBank on the certificate of titlethereto and which MobileHome is located on the realproperty which is the subject ofthe foregoing trust deed.

Default having been made inthe payment of the indebted-ness secured thereby, and (a)Greg K. Smith having been re-placed as trustee and the un-dersigned, Christopher J. Ply-bon, Successor Trustee, hav-ing been appointed as the soleTrustee under said deed oftrust by instrument recorded inthe aforesaid Clerkʼs Office inTrust Deed Book No. 421, atPage 015, and (b) the under-signed, Christopher J. Plybon,having been appointed asagent and attorney- in-fact ofBank for the public sale of theMobile Home, and having beenrequired to do so by Bank, theowner and holder of the obliga-tions secured by said deed oftrust and security interest, andhaving full and absolute powerand authority in the premises,will on March 14, 2013, at10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, offerfor sale and sell at public auc-tion, for cash to the highestbidder, at the main front doorof the Courthouse of MingoCounty, at 75 East Second Av-enue, Williamson, West Virgin-ia, the following describedproperty:

(a) Real Estate:The said lot hereby conveyedfronts 47.92 feet on MapleStreet, and extends backtherefrom with Lot No. 95, adistance of 69.25 feet to an al-ley, and back on opposite sidewith Lot 97, a distance of 81.43feet to Lot 106, border on saidalley and Lot 106, a total of60.9 feet.

Being the same real estateconveyed unto Samuel Barkerand Wendy Barker from RoyC. Dotson and Maxine Dotson,by deed dated November 28,2000, of record in at DeedBook 379, Page 637 in the Of-fice of the Clerk of the CountyCommission of Mingo County,West Virginia.

(b) Mobile Home:

Together with: 1999 SOUE-FH28 x 64 double wide manufac-tured home in the name ofSamuel Barker and WendyBarker, West Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation, Divi-sion of Motor Vehicles Identi-fication Nos. DSEAL14166Aand DSEAL14166B, Title No.AH50237.

TERMS OF SALE:

1. Cash in hand paid on theday of sale.2. The sale is made “where is,as is” with no warranty whatso-ever. The Successor Trusteeshall have no responsibility forremoval of any tenant or otherparty in possession of saidproperty.3. Subject to any and all as-sessments and taxes againstsaid property, and all mattersof record in the aforesaidClerk's Office senior in priorityto the deed of trust underwhich this sale is being made,including without limitation allprior liens and encumbrancesof any nature whatsoever, in-cluding, without limitation, theliens for ad valorem real es-tate taxes for the years 2012and following.3. The Successor Trustee andAgent reserves the right to ad-journ the sale, for any time, orfrom time to time, without fur-ther notice by announcementat the time and place of saledescribed above or any ad-journment thereof.4. The purchaser shall be re-sponsible for the payment ofthe transfer taxes imposed byArticle 22 of Chapter 11 of theWest Virginia Code as to theReal Estate.5. The Successor Trustee andAgent reserves the right to of-fer the above-described RealEstate and Mobile Home sep-arately and to contingently ac-cept the highest bids thereon.Thereafter, bids will be takenon the Real Estate and MobileHome as a single unit and thehighest bid contingently accep-ted. After the offering of saidproperty as hereinaboveprovided, the bid or bids sub-mitted will be accepted in amanner that will result in thehighest total price for all suchproperty. In the event that thebid accepted is the bid for theproperty as a single unit thenthe successful bidder shallreasonably designate whichportion of such bid is attribut-able to the Real Estate andwhich is attributable to the Mo-bile Home for purposes oftransfer taxes. The SuccessorTrustee and Agent further re-serve the right to only selleither the Real Estate or Mo-bile Home if a bid for one orthe other is in an amount suffi-cient to satisfy the expenses ofthe sale and the indebtednesssecured thereby.6. The Successor Trustee re-serves the right to adjourn thesale, for a time, or from time totime, without further notice byannouncement at the time andplace of sale described aboveor any adjournment thereof.Given under my hand this 11thday of February, 2013.

Christopher J. Plybon, Suc-cessor Trustee(1-304-529-6181)

2:14,21

LEGALS

NOTICE OF SALE (A) REALESTATE UNDER A DEED OFTRUSTBY SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE,AND (B) OF A MOBILE HOMEBY SUCCESSOR TRUSTEEAS AGENT FOR SECUREDPARTY

Notice is hereby given that byvirtue of the following deed oftrust:

1. Deed of Trust dated the 6thday of October, 2003, made bySamuel Barker and WendyBarker, his wife, to Greg K.Smith, Trustee, for the benefitof Community Trust Bank, Inc.,which deed of trust is of re-cord in the Office of the Clerkof the County Commission ofMingo County, West Virginia,in Trust Deed Book No.363, atPage 062, Christopher J. Ply-bon having been named assuccessor trustee by instru-ment of record in the aforesaidClerk's Office in Trust DeedBook 421, at Page 015.

2. Security Interest of Bank ina 1999 SOUE FH 28 x 64double wide manufacturedhome, West Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation, Divi-sion of Motor Vehicles Identi-fication Nos. DSEAL14166aand DSEAL14166B, Title No.AH50237, granted by SamuelBarker and Wendy Barker, hiswife, evidenced by the lien ofBank on the certificate of titlethereto and which MobileHome is located on the realproperty which is the subject ofthe foregoing trust deed.

Default having been made inthe payment of the indebted-ness secured thereby, and (a)Greg K. Smith having been re-placed as trustee and the un-dersigned, Christopher J. Ply-bon, Successor Trustee, hav-ing been appointed as the soleTrustee under said deed oftrust by instrument recorded inthe aforesaid Clerkʼs Office inTrust Deed Book No. 421, atPage 015, and (b) the under-signed, Christopher J. Plybon,having been appointed asagent and attorney- in-fact ofBank for the public sale of theMobile Home, and having beenrequired to do so by Bank, theowner and holder of the obliga-tions secured by said deed oftrust and security interest, andhaving full and absolute powerand authority in the premises,will on March 14, 2013, at10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, offerfor sale and sell at public auc-tion, for cash to the highestbidder, at the main front doorof the Courthouse of MingoCounty, at 75 East Second Av-enue, Williamson, West Virgin-ia, the following describedproperty:

(a) Real Estate:The said lot hereby conveyedfronts 47.92 feet on MapleStreet, and extends backtherefrom with Lot No. 95, adistance of 69.25 feet to an al-ley, and back on opposite sidewith Lot 97, a distance of 81.43feet to Lot 106, border on saidalley and Lot 106, a total of60.9 feet.

Being the same real estateconveyed unto Samuel Barkerand Wendy Barker from RoyC. Dotson and Maxine Dotson,by deed dated November 28,2000, of record in at DeedBook 379, Page 637 in the Of-fice of the Clerk of the CountyCommission of Mingo County,West Virginia.

(b) Mobile Home:

Together with: 1999 SOUE-FH28 x 64 double wide manufac-tured home in the name ofSamuel Barker and WendyBarker, West Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation, Divi-sion of Motor Vehicles Identi-fication Nos. DSEAL14166Aand DSEAL14166B, Title No.AH50237.

TERMS OF SALE:

1. Cash in hand paid on theday of sale.2. The sale is made “where is,as is” with no warranty whatso-ever. The Successor Trusteeshall have no responsibility forremoval of any tenant or otherparty in possession of saidproperty.3. Subject to any and all as-sessments and taxes againstsaid property, and all mattersof record in the aforesaidClerk's Office senior in priorityto the deed of trust underwhich this sale is being made,including without limitation allprior liens and encumbrancesof any nature whatsoever, in-cluding, without limitation, theliens for ad valorem real es-tate taxes for the years 2012and following.3. The Successor Trustee andAgent reserves the right to ad-journ the sale, for any time, orfrom time to time, without fur-ther notice by announcementat the time and place of saledescribed above or any ad-journment thereof.4. The purchaser shall be re-sponsible for the payment ofthe transfer taxes imposed byArticle 22 of Chapter 11 of theWest Virginia Code as to theReal Estate.5. The Successor Trustee andAgent reserves the right to of-fer the above-described RealEstate and Mobile Home sep-arately and to contingently ac-cept the highest bids thereon.Thereafter, bids will be takenon the Real Estate and MobileHome as a single unit and thehighest bid contingently accep-ted. After the offering of saidproperty as hereinaboveprovided, the bid or bids sub-mitted will be accepted in amanner that will result in thehighest total price for all suchproperty. In the event that thebid accepted is the bid for theproperty as a single unit thenthe successful bidder shallreasonably designate whichportion of such bid is attribut-able to the Real Estate andwhich is attributable to the Mo-bile Home for purposes oftransfer taxes. The SuccessorTrustee and Agent further re-serve the right to only selleither the Real Estate or Mo-bile Home if a bid for one orthe other is in an amount suffi-cient to satisfy the expenses ofthe sale and the indebtednesssecured thereby.6. The Successor Trustee re-serves the right to adjourn thesale, for a time, or from time totime, without further notice byannouncement at the time andplace of sale described aboveor any adjournment thereof.Given under my hand this 11thday of February, 2013.

Christopher J. Plybon, Suc-cessor Trustee(1-304-529-6181)

2:14,21

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NationConcussion policy bill to be heard in SenateLucas L. Johnson IIThe Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As the nation continues to debate increasing safety in contact sports, Tennessee lawmakers are looking at legislation that would require schools and other organizations conducting youth ath-letic programs to adopt concussion policies.

The measure is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. A similar proposal failed last year.

Rep. Cameron Sexton is the sponsor of the House ver-sion of the bill.

Under the proposal, schools are required to “adopt guidelines … as approved by the department of health to inform and educate coaches, school administrators, youth athletes and their parents or guardians of the nature, risk and symptoms of concussion and head injury, including continuing to play after concussion or head injury.”

Sexton didn’t specify issues with the measure that have been worked out, but he said all parties involved seem to be pleased with the current version, which also appears to have bipartisan support.

“We’ve worked hard with all the groups from last year … and they’re all on board with this version of the bill,” said Sexton, R-Crossville.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama said in an interview on CBS during a Super Bowl pre-game show said that, if he had a son, he would have to think about whether he would let him play football.

Obama, who has two daughters, said the threat of con-cussions for football players means that everything pos-sible should be done to improve their safety — especially players from youth football leagues through college.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said later that the league is funding research to learn more about the risks and changing rules to make the game safer.

On Wednesday, NFL senior vice president Adolpho Birch, who oversees law and labor policy for the league, told The Associated Press that 42 states — and the Dis-trict of Columbia — have passed laws similar to the one being proposed in Tennessee.

“We’ve been supporting this type of legislation for a number of years … with the goal of trying to have a law like this in every state,” said Birch, who was to speak be-fore the Senate Education Committee.

This month, the Youth Sports Safety Alliance released recommendations aimed at protecting the nearly 8 million students participating in high school sports each year.

Among the recommendations was requiring students to have a pre-season physical exam, including testing for some of the 400,000 concussions students suffer annually.

Texas, the state with the largest number of student athletes, already is following most of the advocates’ re-quirement. Each school district is required to have a con-cussion-prevention program led by at least one medical professional.

Tennessee House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh said it’s time for the state to consider similar policies.

“Sports are getting a bit more violent,” said the Ripley Democrat, who is a co-sponsor on the legislation. “It just seems like the smart thing to do.”

Stocks slip following homebuilding slowdownMatthew CraftAP Business Writer

NEW YORK — Caterpil-lar helped drag the stock market lower Wednesday after the industrial giant reported weaker world-wide sales. A mixed report on housing also weighed on the market.

News that Apple’s major supplier, Foxconn, stopped hiring at its largest plant in China helped push down Apple’s stock. Foxconn reportedly said the hir-ing freeze was not caused by slumping orders for iPhones. Apple fell $7.29 to $452.70.

Trading turned choppy after the Federal Reserve released details of its meet-ing last month. According to the minutes, several pol-icymakers worried that the Fed’s bond-buying effort could eventually unsettle financial markets or cause the bank to take losses. Most of the Fed officials thought the economy faced fewer risks than in Decem-ber.

The Dow fell 27 points to 14,008 as of 2:30 p.m. EST. Caterpillar slid $1.78 to $93.83.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped eight points to 1,523. The Nas-daq composite fell 20 points to 3,193.

The stock market surged at the start of the year, then drifted slightly higher in recent weeks with few ma-jor events to drive trading one way or another. That could change as soon as Congress returns from va-cation next Monday. Deep federal spending cuts are scheduled to start March 1 unless Congress and the White House find a way to avoid them.

Both the Dow and the S&P 500 have gained nearly 7 percent for the year. The Nasdaq is up 6 percent.

Phil Orlando, chief mar-ket strategist at Feder-ated Investors, believes the stock market has climbed too quickly this year. He’s looking for it to get knocked down by 3 per-cent or more in the com-ing weeks. Another budget battle in Washington could be the trigger.

“There are a lot of us who say, ‘We’re a little bit ahead of ourselves here,’” Orlando said. “I still ex-pect an all-time high for the S&P 500 this year, but it’s going to get there in fits and starts.”

Even though housing construction slowed down in January, the Department of Commerce reported Wednesday that new hous-ing starts remained strong. Builders started construc-tion at an annual rate of 890,000 last month, down 8.5 percent from Decem-ber. Applications for build-ing permits increased.

Boeing rose $1 to $75.65. An investigation into the overheating of a battery that caused a Boe-ing 787 to make an emer-gency landing in Japan last month found that it was incorrectly wired. Sepa-rately, Boeing’s engineers approved the company’s contract offer late Tuesday, defusing a showdown that could have resulted in a strike.

The Dow closed at its highest level of the year Tuesday, bringing it within one percent of 14,164, the record high reached more than five years ago.

In the U.S. government bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged from late Tuesday at 2.03 percent. The yield, which is used as a benchmark rate for mortgages and other loans, has climbed steadily higher since the start of the year, when it traded around 1.70 percent.

BLONDIE Dean Young/Denis Lebrun

BEETLE BAILEY Mort Walker

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE Chris Browne

HI & LOIS Brian and Greg Walker

FUNKY WINKERBEAN Tom Batiuk

MUTTS Patrick McDonnell

THE FAMILY CIRCUS Bil Keane

DENNIS THE MENACE Hank Ketchum

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CONCEPTIS SUDOKUby Dave Green

Thursday, February 21, 2013 COMICS/ENTERTAINMENT

Today’s Answers

HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013:

This year, dare to dream. That step will be important in turning a fantasy into a reality. Speak up about these desires. Your immediate circle of friends might be changing because you are transforming. A new person in your life could be quite controlling, which could become problematic. Don’t bring this person in close until you know him or her better. If you are single, summer 2013 could bring a very special suitor. Enjoy this con-nection. If you are attached, you will be unusually content with each other. Schedule a wonderful retreat together. CANCER is as intuitive as you are. Listen to him or her.

The Stars Show the Kind of Day You’ll Have: 5-Dynamic; 4-Positive; 3-Average; 2-So-so; 1-DifficultARIES (March 21-April 19) HHH You have plans, and you are

goal-oriented. Events easily could change your schedule around in the morning, which leaves the remainder of the day to play catch-up. Your intu-ition guides you through complicated situations. Tonight: Remain sensitive to a difficult person.TAURUS (April 20-May 20) HHHH Understand someone’s

opposition. Ask yourself whether this is a knee-jerk reaction or a well thought-out response. You have a choice to make, but approach a power play with care. If you don’t, it could be a waste of time. Tonight: Hang out with friends and family.GEMINI (May 21-June 20) HHH Put the reins on spending if

you see some smoke signals floating around you. Your response could be more significant than you are aware of. Root out the issue with care, and you probably will be happier as a result. Tonight: Make weekend plans with close friends.CANCER (June 21-July 22) HHHH Listen to others who seek

you out. They might perceive you as being more powerful than you think you are. Give yourself space to do what you feel is necessary, and appre-ciate that others could be putting you on a pedestal. Tonight: Follow your own ideas.LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) HHH Respond to situations after

listening to your inner voice. You might need — and want — to back off, at least for a little while. Your gregarious nature could demand a different out-let. Handle what needs to be done in solitude. Tonight: You don’t have to tell

everyone everything.VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) HHHHH Zero in on what needs

to happen. Your creativity might be challenged by someone, and you’ll have to come up with quite a few ideas. Brainstorm with a friend who often doesn’t agree with you; you will have several solutions to choose from. Tonight: Take a stand.LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) HHHH Reach out for more infor-

mation, as you might not have all the facts. Someone in your domestic life could let you know how little he or she thinks you know. Detach from the situation, and you just might find this matter to be humorous. Tonight: Good times happen.SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) HHHH Others who are involved

in a project you’re working on will join you in a brainstorming session. Whatever the objective of this meeting is, you’ll find that a certain individual can be unusually challenging. Don’t lose sight of your objective. Tonight: Read between the lines.SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) HHHH Understand what is happen-

ing with someone. This person might need you to make more of an effort to get together. A money issue could be the root of the problem. Recognize a liability, and establish a boundary, if need be. Tonight: Listen rather than speak.CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) HHHH You can be a hard person

to resist. You are more than willing to play devil’s advocate. You take this role rather seriously. A person you play this role with might not be as secure as you would like. Try to straighten out this issue. Tonight: Your treat.AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) HHHH If you are able to avoid

a difficult person, you could have a nearly perfect day. Accomplish what you must, but take some time for yourself. Schedule an appointment or a checkup. Include some exercise, or take a walk if you can. Tonight: Run an important errand.PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) HHHHH Your creativity comes

forth, which brings you many oppor-tunities. Honor what is happening around you, and find the space to incorporate more of a specific experi-ence into your life. You will feel better as a result. Tonight: Act like this is the beginning of your weekend.

Jacqueline Bigar is on the Internetat www.jacquelinebigar.com

ZITS Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Jacquelene Bigar’s HOROSCOPE

THE LOCKHORNS William Hoest

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EntertainmentLittle girl is too affectionate

Dear Dr. Brothers: Our youngest child is 6 years old, and since she’s the “baby,” she’s been showered with kisses and hugs since she was an infant. Perhaps be-cause of this, she’s much more affection-ate with everyone than the rest of our kids are, so much so that I wonder if we’ve gone overboard. She thinks nothing of plopping down on the lap of any adult (men included) and giving him or her a big hug or kiss. How do I stop this without ruining her sweet, innocent nature? It worries me. — L.P.

Dear L.P.: Child-safety ad-vocates have spent many years grappling with the problem of

teaching kids about personal safety and boundaries, and there are many guidelines available for parents to follow when talking to chil-dren of varying ages about the unpleasant facts of life without scaring them. No one likes to think that their child would be in jeopardy from being affectionate with family, caregiv-ers and friends she knows well, but we usually find a certain natural reticence in

youngsters when dealing with strangers, so that’s a little bit easier. If your daughter doesn’t have that in her makeup, you can help her with some things to remember.

In your case, though, it’s

got to be alarming to see that your daughter has such an all-encompassing instinct to spread the love. While you don’t want to squelch her affectionate per-sonality or take away her in-nocence, it is important to talk to her now about boundaries that we all have when it comes to touching, kissing and hug-ging. Let her know that those are wonderful gestures that she should share only with people close to her, and work in the good touch versus bad touch in-formation as part of helping her understand what is appropriate. Encourage her to show affec-tion verbally instead of physi-cally outside the family circle. Ask the rest of your kids to dial it back a bit and help their little sister switch to smiles and warm words.

* * *Dear Dr. Brothers: My son

is small for his age, but he has

joined the wrestling team in his weight class, and now he seems to be trying to transform his body in a hurry. I have no ob-jection to him working out and such, but he seems obsessed with the gym, and I have found a lot of strange muscle-build-ing and energy products in his backpack. He also seems to be dieting at the same time. I’m not used to any of this. Do you think I have anything to worry about, and if so, what should I do? — H.C.

Dear H.C.: It’s very common for young men to want to bulk up in their teens as they try to catch up to their growth spurts and the strong, masculine phy-sique they may admire on a teammate or an older guy at school. In addition, those who are on sports teams may be un-der pressure to develop a cer-tain athletic build or have goal weights, strength or other per-

formance standards. It’s worth keeping an eye on just what your son is putting into his body, and you may want to check with his coach as well to make sure that you all are on the same page.

While young women get most of the scrutiny, a new study shows that young men are more focused than ever on their bod-ies, and not necessarily in a healthy way. This survey of 2,800 middle- and high-school students found that more than 90 percent of the boys exercised — but not just for the health benefits. They did it to lose weight, and they used steroids to bulk up. When they ate energy bars or drank protein drinks, it often was in place of real, nutritious food. Ten percent took steroids or other muscle enhancers, exercising mainly to improve their look. Talk to your son to make sure he’s not going overboard; just your scrutiny can help.

Dr. Joyce BrothersSyndicatedColumnist

NYPD, Microsoft create crime-fighting tech systemColleen LongThe Associated Press

NEW YORK — A 911 call comes in about a pos-sible bomb in lower Man-hattan and an alert pops up on computer screens at the New York Police Depart-ment, instantly showing of-ficers an interactive map of the neighborhood, footage from nearby security cam-eras, whether there are high radiation levels and whether any other threats have been made against the city.

In a click, police know exactly what they’re get-ting into.

Such a hypothetical sce-nario may seem like some-

thing out of a futuristic crime drama, but the tech-nology is real, developed in a partnership between the nation’s largest police department and Microsoft Corp., and the latest ver-sion has been quietly in use for about a year.

The project could pay off in more ways than one: The NYPD could make tens of millions of dollars under an unprecedented marketing deal that allows Microsoft to sell the sys-tem to other law enforce-ment agencies and civil-ian companies around the world. The city will get a 30 percent cut.

The Domain Aware-

ness System, known as “the dashboard,” instanta-neously mines data from the police department’s voluminous arrest records, 911 calls, more than 3,000 security cameras citywide, license plate readers and portable radiation detec-tors, and assembles it in an easy-to-use form.

Right now, it is used only in NYPD offices, mostly in the counterterrorism unit. Eventually, the sys-tem could supply crime-fighting information in real time to officers on laptops in their squad cars and on mobile devices while they walk the beat.

“It works incredibly

well,” said Jessica Tisch, director of planning and policy for the counterter-rorism unit.

For example, officers used the system during a deadly shooting outside the Empire State Building in August. Dozens of 911 calls were coming in, and it initially looked like an at-tack staged by several gun-men. But officers mapped the information and pulled up cameras within 500 feet of the reported shots to de-termine there was only one shooter.

Analysts are cautious about the potential profits, saying that largely depends on Microsoft’s sales efforts and whether any major competition arises. While there other data-drilling products made by other companies, they say the NYPD’s involvement could set the dashboard apart.

“This is the kind of stuff you used to only see in movies,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group, a technology analysis firm. “Getting it to work in a way that police depart-ments can use in real time is huge.”

The venture began in 2009 when the NYPD ap-proached Microsoft about building software to help mine data for the Lower Manhattan Security Initia-tive, a network of private and public cameras and other tools monitored by the department’s counter-terrorism bureau. Develop-ment cost the department between $30 million and $40 million, officials said.

“Usually, you purchase software that you try to work with, but we wanted this to be something that really worked well for us, so we set about creating it with them,” said Rich-ard Daddario, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism.

Officers were involved throughout the process with the programmers, of-fering advice on what they need during an emergency.

“It was created by cops for cops,” Tisch said. “We thought a lot about what in-formation we want up close and personal, and what needs to be a click away. It’s all baked in there.”

The system uses hun-dreds of thousands of piec-es of information. Security camera footage can be re-wound five minutes so that officers can see suspects who may have fled. Sensors pick up whether a bag has been left sitting for a while. When an emergency call comes in, officers can check prior 911 calls from that address to see what they might be up against.

Prospective clients can customize it to fit their or-ganization.

Dave Mosher, a Micro-soft vice president in charge of program management, said the company started to market the system in August and is looking at smaller municipalities, law enforcement agencies and companies that handle ma-jor sporting events.

Yahoo redesign aims to make site more invitingMichael LiedtkeAP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo is renovating the main entry into its website in an effort to get people to visit more frequently and stay longer.

The long-awaited makeover of Yahoo.com’s home page is the most notable change to the website since the Internet company hired Maris-sa Mayer as its CEO seven months ago. The new look debuted Wednesday in the U.S., although it could take a few more days before everyone starts to see it.

It’s the first time Yahoo has redesigned the page in four years. In that time, the company has seen its annual revenue drop by about 30 percent from $7.2 billion in 2008 to $5 billion last year as more online advertising flowed to rivals such as Internet search leader Google Inc. and social networking leader Facebook Inc.

Mayer, who spent 13 years helping to build Google into the Internet’s most powerful com-pany, has vowed to revive Yahoo Inc.’s revenue growth by establishing more of the company’s services as daily habits that “delight and inspire” their users.

Yahoo.com’s revamped home page figures to play a key role in determining whether Mayer, 37, realizes her ambition.

“We think this will be the new foundation for Yahoo,” said Mike Kerns, the company’s vice president of product.

Despite the company’s recent financial mal-aise, Yahoo’s home page has remained one of the Internet’s top destinations. The page attracted 392 million worldwide visitors last month, a 7 percent increase from 365 million at the same time last year, according to research firm com-Score Inc. By comparison, Microsoft Corp.’s msn.com drew a crowd of 334 million, up 4 per-cent from last year.

But visitors haven’t been spending as much time at Yahoo.com when they check in. They also haven’t been making as many return visits each month. That’s been a problem for many other web-sites, too, as Facebook and other online hangouts capture more of people’s online time.

Yahoo’s revamped home page isn’t a radical new look, but there are enough changes that could make the website more addictive. In a blog post, Mayer wrote that she is trying to infuse Yahoo’s home page with a “more modern experience.”

The biggest switch will be in how Yahoo deter-mines which stories to show each visitor on the home page and how the information is displayed.

Kerns says Yahoo has developed more sophis-ticated formulas to determine which topics are most likely to appeal to different people so the news feed can be fine-tuned to cater to different tastes.

Yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., al-ready knows a lot about people who have been coming to its website for years, particularly if they logged in while visiting. People willing to connect Yahoo with their social circles on Facebook also are more apt to see stories that appeal to them. That access will enable Yahoo to pick out stories about subjects tied to a person’s interests on Facebook, either directly or through their online friendships. More tools will empower users to designate their areas of interest, too.

The news feed also has been retooled so it is constantly refreshed with more material as a per-son scrolls down the page. The ability to endlessly peruse stories is ideally suited for viewing on smartphones and tablet computers controlled by touch, although the feature also works on desktop machines operated with a mouse or keyboard.

Yahoo’s new home page also shows snippets of text from each story, borrowing a page from the Google playbook that Mayer helped write. Those summaries may be especially handy on the smaller screens of mobile devices, a growing market that Mayer has said Yahoo must do a better job reach-ing if the company hopes to bounce back.

To minimize the chances that its story selec-tions will irritate users, Yahoo is also adding con-trols that make it easy to inform the website about which topics aren’t of interest.

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A1 log onto for archive • gameS …matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/public/sites/470/assets/... · 2013-02-21 · The Mingo Career Cen-ter will be holding GED testing for candidates