Resident Input wanted for Greenbrier County Comprehensive Plan

By Edward J. Pluchar

Citizens interested in the future of Greenbrier County met in Lewisburg on September 29 and in Rupert on September 30 with comprehensive planning consultant Megan Dorset to initiate public involvement in the new, state-mandated comprehensive plan.

“A comprehensive plan is one long road map,” Dorset explained. “It establishes legislative intent and provides basis for future decisions. Ideally comp plans should not be political, so the process we’re using is from the ground up. It’s a more community oriented approach, to reflect what folks in Greenbrier County need.”

At both meetings Dorset emphasized the grass roots approach for the plan, beginning with a survey of all residents, followed by six informational meetings in each of the municipalities. Out of these initial steps, four work group sessions will take place over the next two months, and finally a period of public comment on both the preliminary draft and the final draft of the plan.

Dorset came well-versed in many of the objective facts, including population growth and demographics (growth of about .3% a year since 2000; in the coming years, people 65 and older are expected to comprise 40% of the population), and the geography of the county; furthermore, she welcomed information beyond her expertise, which was offered in abundance.

At the Rupert meeting, Matt Ford, currently a resident of Buffalo, WV and president of the Meadow River Watershed Association, traveled 3 hours to take in information and offer his views.

“When someone asks where I’m from, I tell them I’m from Greenbrier County, I just happen to be in Buffalo right now,” he said. “I don’t want to wait until I’m 65 to come back.”

“To have progressive growth over 20, 40, 60 years, we have to have really innovative thinking. Traditional economic development doesn’t apply,” Ford said.

In Lewisburg, Linda Terek Ball, one of the town’s planning commissioners shared her knowledge of the karst zones in the county, which she said follows along the Rt. 219 corridor. Ball and others stressed that they are not anti-development, but are looking for “environmentally sensitive and balanced development.”

At the same meeting, Elmer Collins asked, “What’s wrong with the way we are?”

“You’ve been discovered and it’s not going to stay the same,” Dorset replied. “Retirees are looking for culture, for open spaces, for outdoor activities, and for close proximity to the interstate. That’s Greenbrier County.”

Three more informational meetings will take place next week: Alderson on 10/6, Rainelle on 10/7, and Ronceverte at 10/8, all in their respective city halls at 6:30pm. After that, citizens are encouraged to take part in the group work session of their choice. All groups will meet on October 18 and 25, and November 8 and 15 for two two-hour sessions. Lunch will be provided by the county, which Dorset said is a way to “recoup some of your property taxes.”

Dorset also continued to encourage county residents to fill out surveys.

“If you’re talking to your neighbor and they’re breathing, give them a survey,” she said. Paper copies are available, as is an electronic version on the web at www.greenbriercounty.net. Click on the link for the comprehensive plan at the top.

]]> http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=84 http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=78 http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=78#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:52:55 +0000 admin http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=78

Open Book Hosts Local Doctor for Book Signing

By Edward J. Pluchar

A steady procession of friends and new faces came to praise Z. Shamma-Othman, MD and her book, What Parents of Special Children Should Know: The Story of Sarah Reem, at the Open Book last Friday, August 1^st.

Shamma-Othman signed copies of her book, which began as a journal of “things she didn’t want to forget,” and eventually became a work that is “not clinical but prolific and beautiful,” said preschool teacher Peggy Mullins. “You wouldn’t know she’s a doctor.”

The 100 page book follows the life of Shamma-Othman’s daughter, Sarah Reem, following her premature birth. Just two pounds at birth, Sarah spent the first two months of her new life in the hospital until she weighed 3 ½ pounds and was strong enough to go home.

Shamma-Othman, who had two children before Sarah, said there were many challenges in bringing Sarah up, including the simple fact that Sarah would not grow physically as quickly as other children.

“Feeding was a problem,” said Shamma-Othman, alluding to the fact that Sarah’s motor skills were somewhat stunted because of her premature birth. “She also has a hard time writing. She writes like her mother,” Shamma-Othman said with a laugh.

A strict routine, Shamma-Othman said, helped Sarah develop good study habits to cope with attention issues. That, and CNN.

“She made friends [with the news anchors] on CNN,” Shamma-Othman explained. “She’s hooked on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen.” The family began to use the anchors’ names to direct Sarah’s attention to her studies, with great success. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” she said.

All of that work and devotion comes through in Shamma-Othman’s book, and among the many things said to her at the book signing, the most common were “Thank you.”

Shamma-Othman, too, is grateful.

“Sarah’s all blessing,” she said. “She’s the joy of the house.”

Once before I might have read it through, but a couple of days ago I finished reading the book of Genesis straight through.  In terms of length and density, this isn’t saying a lot, though the genealogies do become a little tedious.

That’s interesting, though.  If I kept reading, a long time from now I’d encounter the genealogies of Jesus, one of which leads back to Adam.  In spite of the unfamiliar names and the fact that reading a list isn’t usually a party-starter, I am fascinated by it when I take a step back.  Lines of succession must have been important to the ancient Jews for many reasons, terrifically important, and it’s a peek at our species seemingly in its youth.

It seems archaic to talk about who my father is, and who my father’s father is, and on back, and the children all these men begat.  Not to mention sexist, right?  (That’s another conversation, boy).  If we were to trace our lineage, we’d aim to link ourselves to someone important, which implicitly enriches our selves, whether we actually deserve it or not.  But there’s more, I think, though I’m not a scholar…

The genealogies in Genesis also trace the relationship between God and His chosen people.  When God introduces Himself as “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…,” I read God as saying, “I have been faithful to you for generations, and the great ones you link yourselves to were made great by Me.  You have the most remarkable relationship that anyone on earth can claim.”

For someone struggling to understand his relationship to God, this is a humble and elegant beginning.

Groups plumb depths of Board’s support

By Edward J. Pluchar

Greenbrier County is home to some 1,300 caves, the second largest number for any county in the nation. It is a wonder then, said John Pierson of the National Speleological Society, that Greenbrier County has never hosted the Society’s Convention.

“People come from around the world to learn about caves here,” Pierson said.

Joined by Jeff Craig, also of the Speleological Society, Pierson appealed to the Board of Education for their support and the use of the Greenbrier East High School and Eastern Greenbrier Middle School buildings. Craig said a conservative estimate predicts the convention will bring $281,000 to the local economy over five days.

The Board approved a letter of support for the convention in a special meeting on Friday, February 15^th.

Also looking for support was Jim Allder, director of the Greenbrier East High School band.

“I’m here to speak about an opportunity presented to the Greenbrier East band: An exclusive, unique opportunity to represent West Virginia at the 65^th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France,” Allder told the board.

Some band boosters, including Elizabeth Christie, were on hand to show their support for the venture, which Allder admitted is “a huge undertaking.”

“We don’t go into these sorts of things lightly,” Allder said. “There are financial concerns. We’re not asking for money right now. We feel we will be able to reach out to the whole state [for funding].”

Nevertheless, Board member Kathy King cited fundraising as the chief obstacle for the trip, and therefore a chief obstacle to the Board’s approval.

“I’d like to see an actual outline of where the dollars are going to come from before we make a decision,” King said. A few other board members echoed King’s concerns, and the board moved to table the motion until further information is available.

County-wide Spelling Bee winners were honored at the February 12^th meeting, including first place winner Christopher Flanagan, and runners-up Levi Snedegar and Jacob Kessler. County Geography Bee winners were also recognized, including Logan Duff, Josh Rankin, Galen Sexton, Julian Kincaid, Tabitha Baire, Hannah Crist, Michael Baldwin, Garrett Midkiff, and Myles Ayres.

Amid recognition for Spelling and Geography Bee Winners, Superintendent John Curry took a moment to praise bus driver Mike Vance for “taking care of business.”

During a regular stop on his route, Vance noticed a truck barreling toward his bus, seemingly out of control. Vance acted quickly, closing the door to prevent any more students from leaving the bus, and honking his horn to freeze the other students, already out of the bus, in their tracks. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

“You prevented a tragedy,” Curry said to Vance. “You saved lives that day.”

Rainelle Council Properly Disposed for Littering Ordinance

By Edward J. Pluchar

When Rainelle physically transferred their ordinances from one book to another, somehow an ordinance against littering went missing. Discarding the ironic possibility that the old ordinance has itself become a piece of litter, Council approved the second reading of a new littering ordinance on Monday, August 11.

The new ordinance covers the ordinary instances of pedestrians and drivers littering, explained Recorder/Treasurer Pete Adams, and the unique instance of people who through their trash into dumpsters they have not paid for. Fines will be assessed for each infraction, Adams said.

Joan Browning, one of Greenbrier County’s candidates for the West Virginia House of Delegates, thanked Council for the opportunity to listen to the concerns of Rainelle.

“I hope to be your delegate, and if I am, I want to know what’s on your mind,” Browning said. She also urged voter registration, and voter re-registration where citizens have changed their names and/or addresses, leaving several registration applications at Rainelle Town Hall.

Catching up with environmental lawyer Joe Lovett in his modest office one story above The Wild Bean in Lewisburg, I thank him for meeting me on a Saturday. Casually, Lovett indicates a Saturday meeting is no problem, because he often works weekends.

Lovett figures prominently in Coal River by Michael Shnayerson, a book sympathetic to Lovett’s legal efforts to halt mountaintop removal in Appalachia, which has received national attention, including a review in The New York Times. Yet the man “with clean good looks” who could “stay grimly focused for hours” on his work has not read the book.

It is the second part of Shnayerson’s description, Lovett’s “grim focus,” which makes sense of these and other instances of self-denial. This is the trait which supercedes the impression his other characteristics – intelligence, ability to hold together an argument, to grasp and express nuance – may make on a person, arguably the most valuable trait to Lovett’s work.

But Joe Lovett was not always the Executive Director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, and he was not always so focused.

An unlikely beginning for a lawyer, though not for an environmentalist, Lovett spent much of his youth working on his grandfather’s farm. A retired welder, Lovett’s grandfather grew up on a subsistence farm and brought some measure of the farmer’s life to his family.

“My mother was born in a cabin on the farm, without a doctor,” Lovett explains. “They had cows and a big garden. There was no running water, they had an outhouse.”

Growing up in Charleston, WV, Lovett would stay with his grandfather occasionally, getting paid “whatever minimum wage was, or maybe a little bit over that.”

“It was better than working in a store, working indoors,” he says.

“They used a scythe to cut all of their fields. I remember the first time I used a scythe, my grandfather just stood there and laughed, chewing his tobacco and shaking his head,” Lovett recalls. “He was one of those people who just was a farmer. In a good way, I don’t think he would have understood what I was talking about [if I had tried to discuss environmentalism].”

Lovett, on the other hand, was just about to get into Henry David Thoreau, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other authors.

“Walden was my favorite book in high school,” Lovett says, noting that this preference contrasted with some of his peers who enjoyed reading science fiction.

“My friends and I, we’d argue about things,” Lovett explains. “They were talking about, ‘Well, let’s colonize the moon!’ And I’d say, ‘Why should we colonize the moon? Let’s take care of what we’ve got!’”

By the time he entered college, the development of Lovett’s environmental consciousness was progressing steadily. Grandson of a farmer, he was also the son of a lawyer, though, interestingly, Lovett considers the combined experience of his farming grandfather and law practicing father to be “a weird mix.” So, the synthesis of environmentalism and legal counseling would wait, as Lovett decided to major in English and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

“I had a teacher freshman year who was really into living a deliberate, different kind of life,” says Lovett with an air of freshness. For a college career that would solidify Lovett’s dedication to the environment, this was a fitting start.

“In my sophomore year of college, Wendell Berry came to read at my college and I heard him read. It was amazing, I loved it, and I started reading his books,” Lovett continues enthusiastically. “I actually wrote him a letter and asked if I could work on his farm. He wrote back a very nice letter and said ‘I don’t hire, but come and visit.’”

After Berry came Gary Snyder, “who was a great environmentalist, one of the best environmental writers around, and he came to read his poetry.

“Those two events happened pretty close together, so I started reading those kinds of things. I guess I was already inclined that way: I liked to camp, and I grew up working outside.”

Come graduation, what does a budding environmentalist and English and Philosophy major do next? Naturally, he works on an organic farm.

Potomac Vegetable Farms, currently operating in their fifth decade, worked the land in three counties between Virginia and Maryland. Living in “primitive conditions,” as Lovett fondly puts it, 20-25 workers would tend the farm during the summer months, while he was among 5-6 people who lived and worked the farm year round.

“The organic movement was very small then, and Potomac Vegetable Farms may have been the only organic farm in Virginia,” he says. Following his two-year stint at PVF, Lovett worked on a couple of other organic farms, including one near Monticello (VA?), took agriculture classes at Virginia Tech and traveled for another two years.

Lovett’s four years of organic farming were rewarding and they helped him begin to focus his eventual life’s work.

“I thought, ‘This is cool, I like doing this.’ But I started looking for a way to have a bigger impact,” he says.

To the present day, Lovett confesses that he “much prefers organic gardening to practicing law,” and lists gardening as one of the activities that would contribute to an ideal existence. Nevertheless, his move away from full-time gardening was fortuitous in at least one respect.

“A farmer’s job is, I’d say, half fixing machines,” says Lovett. “I had an uncle who could fix any machine that breaks just by looking at it. That just baffles me, how someone can do that. So I decided, ‘Okay, I’m not going to be a mechanic, and I really don’t want to be.’”

Though Lovett would continue to farm in some form until the present day, his love for organic farming remains at arm’s length. Not so for another love: While at PVF, a fellow worker introduced Lovett to the woman who would be his wife. She was a student at the University of Virginia, so Lovett decided to resume his studies there, this time as a graduate student of Philosophy.

Richard Rorty, the pragmatist philosopher, was a popular professor at UVA when Lovett arrived, and the latter studied under the former over several courses.

“Philosophers kinda get sidetracked, that’s the very definition of philosophy,” Lovett explains. “They’ve got their heads in the clouds.

“Rorty’s job was to teach a bunch of students who came in with their heads in the clouds to take their heads out of the clouds, to get more grounded in the real world.”

Lovett acknowledges that Rorty was more politically rather than environmentally inclined, yet the philosopher’s emphasis on practicality helped sharpen Lovett’s focus on environmental causes.

As for his own love of nature, Lovett continued to work on farms during his summer vacations, subtly coalescing with the original purpose behind the agrarian tradition of letting students off for the summer. In his continual return to the land, one can understand Lovett’s desire to preserve nature in all its fruitfulness and vivacity. Lovett likely could not be satisfied as a philosopher, even one whose head has come out of the clouds.

The old joke among students of philosophy is that, for them, there is only one career path to follow: Teaching philosophy. To this, Lovett adds, “Or go to law school.”

“Philosophy is pretty good training,” he explains, “You learn how to argue rationally, logically, things you’re supposed to do in law. I felt that I had some of the necessary skills, and I’ve always been argumentative, I guess.”

Entering the University of Pennsylvania Law School in his early 30’s marks one of two ways Lovett found himself to be “unusual” among his classmates.

“Most students are 23, 24, who want to go to law school but don’t know why,” Lovett says. “I was focused. I knew what I wanted to do.”

He did not wait long to get started. Beginning in the summer after his first year of law school, Lovett went to work for attorney Dan Hedges at Mountain State Justice.

“Dan had a good reputation and did amazing work for poor people,” Lovett recalls with admiration. “He sued the prisons, he sued the welfare department, he sued the housing people. He sued everyone, on behalf of poor people, and won.

“Dan gave me plenty of time to do what I needed to do. I probably spent three or four months before filing any cases [because] I didn’t know anything about the laws, I had never challenged a mountaintop mine,” Lovett says. “Dan was a good person to work for because of that.”

“It takes someone who practices only that area to understand the complicated nature of environmental law to provide decent representation,” Hedges says. “Joe was very effective.”

So effective was Lovett that in 2001 the Stern Family Fund awarded him a grant of $200,000 to establish the nonprofit law and policy organization, The Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment, where he currently serves as Executive Director and lawyer.

The Center’s accomplishments, priorities, and organizational structure are presented in detail on their website – www.appalachian-center.org – though Lovett’s primary focus remains where it was during his tenure with Hedges, on strip mining in Appalachia.

“These are the most productive and diverse temperate hardwood forests in the world; it’s a very special band of forests that runs through Appalachia, and once we strip mine the land, the forest never comes back,” Lovett argues.

Of the many arguments he could have offered, it’s fitting that Lovett chooses one based on singular growth and the renewable resources nature offers. The same appeal has been offered to him throughout his life, from his grandfather’s unarticulated love of farming to the very eloquent writings of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder, from the foundational lessons of professors to the primordial response of a seed to conscientious cultivation.

“You want to do something to make the world a better place,” Lovett says simply, a little hesitant to speak in clichés. Yet it may be the most direct way to describe the impact he continues to have, the impact he aspired to have before his focus was quite so sharp.

Working until one dies seems a grim forecast, and such a thought is usually uttered with some resignation.

On the other hand, there are people who are equally grim about retirement. For these, there’s something special about coming to work every day, a consequence of the well-established marriage of one’s passions to his livelihood.

Sidney Jacob Neathawk was such a person. Hired as a sawmill water boy at 13 years of age, Neathawk “retired” in the mid 1940’s, only to decide he “couldn’t sit still.” So in 1947 he pursued what he considered to be a hobby, working a small sawmill which eventually became SJ Neathawk Lumber Company (NLC), and never entertained the grim prospect of retirement again.

53 years later, Neathawk was featured in the Charleston Gazette under the headline, “101 Years Old and Still on the Job.” People would ask Neathawk when he planned to retire, and his usual reply was, “Retire? What’s that?” He worked another year after that, until his health began to deteriorate rapidly; in 2001, Neathawk passed away at the age of 103.

“I've prospered all my life,” Neathawk said in his final years. “I've done about everything I ever dreamt about doing. I've been very fortunate.”

Today, the company that bears his name continues to prosper, and this is no accident, not mere karmic momentum. A remarkable feat in the era of Big Box stores, when sentimentality alone cannot keep customers coming back to family-owned businesses, Neathawk’s daughter, Janet, and her two sons, Doug and Sean Goodwin, own and continue to operate the locally iconic company according to the virtues and principles of its founder.

These start with NLC’s responsiveness to the needs of the local community, which takes many forms. The most profound example of this could be illustrated very simply: Consider that the company began as a one-man sawmill, then step inside the 100,000 sq. ft. home of plumbing, electrical, landscaping, painting, and hardware supplies, a kitchen and bath department, a flooring department, a separate desk and staff for contractor sales, and some 80 employees spread throughout the store and lumber yard. This tremendous expansion has been the direct result of NLC’s mission to meet customer needs, and the expansion continues.

Randy Luck, the store’s Hardware Purchasing Manager, says farming equipment was a recent addition to the inventory. The inclusion of such things as corrals and horse stalls was a response to the closing of several farming equipment outlets, he says, a situation which threatened to cut-off supplies for the area’s considerable demand.

“So here’s a lumber company,” Luck remarks with a smile, “that brought in a whole line of cattle equipment. The willingness of the principals to take on new product lines is excellent.”

Of course, the purpose of being in business is to stay in business, and it is clear that seeking customer input has paid off for NLC. The decision to move, made in 2001, was not immediately clear to the family, though they knew they needed to expand.

“We brought in engineers to see if it would be possible to add a second story to the existing facility,” says Janet Neathawk of the old NLC building, now the home of The Very Thing at the I64 interchange on Rt. 219. “I thought, after the interstate came through, that we had the perfect location for our business.”

“But it just didn’t seem practical because we had just the 5.5 acres,” Neathawk continues, “and that’s when we considered the possibility of moving to a new location.”

When she and her sons brought the idea to her father, they wondered what he might think. Apparently he was a step ahead of them.

“He said, ‘I wondered how long it would take you to figure out you needed to do this.’”

Doug Goodwin, who manages commodity purchasing, reports an increased sales volume of 300% following the move. So the local community, in its relationship with NLC, reciprocates.

Beyond products and profits, the company has cultivated a reputation for customer service, which springs directly from knowledgeable and steady employees.

“I challenge other companies to put their employees up against ours – we have some really, really knowledgeable people in all areas,” Janet Neathawk says.

As one of those employees, Randy Luck says, “One of the benefits of working for a family-owned business is the ability to talk to the head lady. The door is always open.”

Luck, in the 1970’s, was a salesman who offered his wares to S.J. Neathawk. He’s now been with NLC for 11 years and attributes employee longevity to the open-door policy and the family’s compassion.

Mike Myles has been with NLC for 32 years, and was treated to a cruise on the occasion of his 30^th year with the company. He’s been around so long, in fact, that he vividly remembers a story about Doug Goodwin when the latter was a boy.

“Doug came in one day and wanted to help. We were working on unloading a paint shipment, which at the time came about once a month. So it was a lot of paint,” Myles explains. He goes on to tell how he and another employee were responsible for unloading the shipment, so when young Doug came to help, they decided to put him to work.

“I’d work with Doug for a while, unloading the paint, and then I took a break, and my partner started unloading – but Doug never got a break.” The shipment took all day to unload, and as Myles tells it, Doug’s body couldn’t take much more.

“They said he fell asleep during dinner,” Myles says with a smile.

Goodwin seems not to harbor any ill-will as he considers NLC’s employees, and Myles high among them, as “the best in the industry.”

“We value our personnel highly,” he says, emphasis his own.

Janet Neathawk, Doug, and his brother, Sean Goodwin, also highlight the benefits of working in a family-owned business, which are all the more compelling when one considers that all three of them say they experienced no pressure to work for the company, but came of their own choice.

Doug Goodwin cites flexibility and job security as benefits, in addition to being close to his family. Neathawk echoes this third benefit, saying she was continually convinced to work at NLC in order to remain close to her family, including her mother, Gladys Neathawk.

In this spirit, Neathawk says, “The three of us work very closely together,” conferring regularly on major decisions.

Talking to the family, you might not know that many of those decisions deal with charitable giving; the family rarely boasts of this. Even Luck and Myles, though more open, seem reluctant to say too much.

“The family is very quiet about their charitable works,” Luck explains. He says he is aware of many examples, including providing materials for Eagle Scout projects, wheelchair ramps, and handi-cap accessible showers, giving away land for charitable purposes, and going so far as to assist a family struggling with the cost of cancer treatments. Luck indicates that the number of good works he is not aware of may be many more than these.

“They recognize the value of giving back to the community,” Luck says, perhaps understating the situation.

Yet understatement can be eloquent, and the entire mission of NLC, from its foundation to the present, might be summed up in a simple motto Luck often heard S.J. Neathawk say.

“He would say, ‘Always do what’s right.’”

As she herself was not pushed into the family business, Janet Neathawk does not aim to push any of her five grandchildren into it, either. Still, she says, “we hope at least one of them chooses to continue the business, that’d be a great thing.”

Many, many others agree.

It’s Tuesday evening sometime in your near future, and you decide, “Why not?”

Maybe it takes you just 10 minutes, but more likely you’ve driven twenty minutes or so when you finally reach the bottom of Clayton Road. There’s only one way to turn, so you begin the ascent.

If you’re experiencing some trepidation after a few miles, you wouldn’t be the first. For the hundreds of out-of-towners who negotiate the same windy, narrow road and the occasional blind turn, trepidation can be a moderate contagion. Maybe you’re immune to the mountain roads, but who can escape a little fear of the unknown? What sort of gathering will this be?

Well, you’re too far in your head, because you almost missed the turn. A sign stands at the bottom of the driveway, just as promised, reading, “Bethlehem Farm.” Up a steeper incline you go.

The thick forest breaks and as you crest, you notice you’re on a domestic safari: Cows to the left, cows to the right, and whoa! Slow down for that cow in front of you. Just beep a little, she’ll move. Onward you drive, when a big and beautiful log cabin appears on your right, rising into view as you finish your drive. There’s an old white building straight ahead, you can park over there. It’s time for dinner! (Don’t forget the cookies you brought).

Open the door, and sounds of all kinds envelop you – Dishes are clanking, water is pouring, people are chatting and laughing. There are young people everywhere! Most appear to be in high school, though you notice a number of adults, how shall we say, advanced in years. Then there are a handful, six if you count them, who are a little bit too old to be in high school. They are making introductions and orchestrating the dinner preparations. They’re more familiar with their surroundings. And now, any one of those might come to greet you.

Welcome to Community Night at Bethlehem Farm.

What is the meaning of all of this? Why should there be such an event atop this more or less random mountain?

It might be helpful to start with Bethlehem Farm’s mission statement, which reads:

Bethlehem Farm is a Catholic community in Appalachia that transforms lives through service in the local community and the teaching of sustainable practices. We invite volunteers to join us in living the Gospel cornerstones of service, prayer, community, and simplicity.

This community, at present, is seven strong: Colleen and Eric Fitts, Ashley Boone, Joe Prieboy, and Kathleen and Brain DeRouen, with their new baby boy, Micah. While Micah is still adjusting to life outside the womb, most would say Colleen and Eric, wife and husband, are themselves well-adjusted to this life. But Bethlehem Farm’s Director and Development Officer, respectively, have encountered some people on the other side of that fence.

“Some people will say, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you could live and work there.’ But when you’re doing what you love, it doesn’t really feel like it’s that big of a deal,” Colleen says.

The two took turns working as staff members at Nazareth Farm in Doddridge County, an organization with a mission similar to that of Bethlehem Farm, and it was during Colleen’s term, in January 2004, that a group of volunteers asked the question, “Why aren’t there more places like Nazareth Farm?”

The Fitts’, who at that time did not share a name, became the driving force of a group of people committed to establishing a new Nazareth Farm. Eric, the semi-official historian of Bethlehem Farm, tells it like this:

“The basic idea was that we would find a community and start hosting volunteers in the summer at a local community center, with the idea of finding a permanent property to build on and develop,” he explains. “We planned on getting established, with our own facilities, by the summer of 2007.”

And what actually happened?

“We had a lead on a property within three weeks, and had that property in hand about 11 months later, on December 8, 2004. Two Caretakers arrived in January of 2005, and by January of 2006, we had four people here living out the mission,” a year and a half ahead of schedule, Eric said. That property, of course, is Bethlehem Farm’s current home.

How to explain this acceleration of events?

“I think the way that we saw it,” Eric muses, “is that there was no one person responsible for the formation of Bethlehem Farm. Everybody did a lot of work to get things going. But the end result was much greater than the sum total of the efforts of the people involved,” he said.

Colleen adds, “It was entirely not according to the plan we had,” and this seeming intervention they call the Holy Spirit.

Another fortunate development was Russ Plywaczynski’s (Pluh-vuh-CHIN-skee’s) four-year commitment to Bethlehem Farm as one of its first two Caretakers (the title for members of the community who dedicate a year or more of service to “the Farm”). Russ fulfilled his commitment this past November, but looks back on those first months with satisfaction.

“The work was crazy, constantly busy, and always adapting to the newest change in the plans,” Russ explains. “But somehow, amidst the craziness and chaos that first summer, the volunteer group weeks benefited volunteers and local citizens alike.”

Volunteers, who remain a major component of Bethlehem Farm’s mission, continue to come from all over the country and the world, usually as part of a school or church. Each group spends up to a week at the Farm and undergoes essentially the same program, according to Volunteer Coordinator Ashley Boone.

“Each year, over 300 volunteers join the Caretakers to live together as a community,” Ashley explains. “During their week at the Farm, they serve the surrounding community, pray together, learn about and from the people of the area, and experience ways of practicing and living a sustainable life.”

Joe Prieboy will soon be responsible for coordinating the service projects in Summers, Monroe, and Greenbrier Counties when Colleen hands over the position of (you guessed it) Project Coordinator.

“When the volunteers are here, we typically do home repair projects – anything from building wheelchair ramps to replacing roofs, installing siding and insulation in a house, and all kinds of handy projects,” Joe explains. “Sometimes the volunteers do more labor than they’re used to, but most find it pretty rewarding and enjoy seeing the progress they make.”

Joe also stresses the importance of “getting to meet the homeowners.”

“This is a different setting than the volunteers are used to, whether because it’s a rural area or because the homeowner is low-income, and they’re always impressed with the homeowners’ faith, hospitality, and openness.”

Volunteers will typically spend one of their work days on “Home Crew” with Kathleen DeRouen. As House Manager, Kathleen leads volunteers in baking bread and making meals from scratch, house chores, and packing lunches for the crews working out in the community.

“My favorite story was when we had a 6 year-old with us on home crew. He was making bread and got upset with me when I shared his dough. He told me I should have made my own!” Kathleen says, laughing. “I think that sums up a little bit of how people appreciate doing things with their hands, things that maybe they never thought about doing before.”

Sustainable living is essentially synonymous with “green” living, and so has enjoyed increasing popularity in recent years. Bethlehem Farm’s Sustainability Coordinator, Brian DeRouen, thinks popularity is not enough.

“Sustainability is not just a trendy, cool thing to do – it really does matter,” he says.

“Our main goal is to equip our volunteers with ways that they can live out sustainability at home, wherever they come from,” including practices such as turning the lights out when leaving a room, taking fewer and shorter showers, and recycling every material possible.

“We want to make it an issue of faith, to bring the Gospel intensity and focus, and the love and care that we show to our human brothers and sisters, to all of God’s creation,” Brian adds.

To meet and spend time with this community, one might notice the ways their mission effortlessly comes alive. One particular component, that of transformation, begs for some reflection here; because transformation is a process, sometimes astonishing and sometimes subtle, it is easy to pass by unaware of the depth and power of the Farm’s work.

For the astonishing, look no further than Rick Dolan’s home in Ronceverte. Before Bethlehem Farm, the roof leaked, the exterior walls were deteriorating and unattractive, and his front door fit so poorly when it closed that air leaked through it almost constantly.

After over $3,000 in grants, another $900 in a loan to Dolan, and some 800 volunteer hours, including the work of every Caretaker, Dolan’s house is practically a new creation: A metal roof that doesn’t leak, a repaired doorway and properly fitting storm door, and perhaps most impressively, uniform siding for protection against the weather and for aesthetic pleasure.

Then there’s metanoia, a Greek word the Caretakers sometimes borrow when they speak of the transformation of one’s mind and heart.

Tim O’Donnell of Bolingbrook, Illinois visited Bethlehem Farm as a college volunteer, and has since returned four times to “the most peaceful place he’s ever been to.”

“What I’ve learned about sustainability from Bethlehem Farm is, nothing goes to waste.” Consequently, he says, “I’ve put a lot more thought into changing how wasteful I am in many areas.”

Frequent visits are also common for Alice Smith of Omaha, Nebraska. Plying her talents and time in many unique capacities, Alice points to her experience during “Family Week” (which is very much what it sounds like) as transformative:

“I believe it is due to the weeks we have spent at both Bethlehem Farm and Nazareth Farm, that my children are so close to each other and to [my husband] and me.  They know and have experienced the sense of delight and peace that comes from community and service, and they know and live the priority of relationship with others and with God.”

It would be possible to gather scores if not hundreds of such testimonies. There are thousands of pictures floating around in real space and in cyber space, depicting the beautiful setting and snapshots of service shared with others. Some unseen, omniscient accountant may be tallying the tonnage of trash diverted from the landfill and of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere, attributable to the Farm’s own efforts, and the efforts of nearly a thousand lives they have touched.

But you’d do better to sate your curiosity by paying Bethlehem Farm a visit. Why not?

For more information on Bethlehem Farm, call (304) 445-7143 or visit their website at www.bethlehemfarm.net.

]]> http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=50 http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=46 http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=46#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:44:29 +0000 admin http://edwardjpluchar.com/blog/?p=46 My mother, brother, and I have suffered from migraine headaches for years.  I’m sure I had such headaches from a fairly young age, and I can specifically remember a migraine I suffered at a community picnic at 8 years old, until I finally vomitted, and thereafter recovered.

I am now convinced that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS from now on) has been a major culprit.  Things like exposure to the sun, extended physical exertion, and other eating habits certainly contribute, but I have noticed that HFCS almost immediately throws my brain chemistry off-balance.

Try this, for an example - next time you’re hungry between meals, eat a candy bar like Snickers.  An hour or so later, eat an organic carrot, or some strawberries.  You’ll feel better after eating the natural foods, but you might also notice that the candy bar made you feel worse than you did before eating it (I emphasize eating between meals because you likely won’t eat anything else, giving you the full effects of the HFCS).

A further demonstration from personal experience:  Starting in college I became unable to stomach pop, because it almost invariably caused a headache.  I first thought it was due to the caffeine, but in the last year or two I have grown accustomed to sweet tea and even certain coffee flavored drinks, so caffeine can’t be the issue.  Thus, I began to experiment.

It turns out that I can stomach pop made by the Mennonites in Kudztown, Pennsylvania, because they use only sugar in their drinks - no HFCS.  Furthermore, I have a hard time with teas and coffee drinks that use HFCS instead of sugar alone, which seems to ratify my theory, at least for my own body.

I should also add, as aluded to above, that I have added a significant amount of fruits and vegetables to my diet, frequently meeting the RDA of 5-9 servings daily.  V8 is a wonderful thing to acclimate one’s tongue to, and I’m sure a more balanced diet has done my body good (as obvious as that will sound).

The result is that migraines afflict me less frequently, and I can usually predict when they’ll start based on what I’m doing and what I eat.  Marcy says I’m unusually sensitive to the effect things have on my body, but I think most people will realize a significant difference in energy level and mental acuity if they start by cutting HFCS out of their diets.

Character #1 is Mrs. Wiley, an 81 year-old African-American woman for whom Joe and I are installing new windows. We accomplished some of this work with a volunteer crew from Bethlehem Farm, including a chaperone named Jim. Now, a short blurb about each of these fine persons before the interaction that I found to be so pleasing.

Mrs. Wiley was on our waiting list for the home repair program when her name finally came up a few weeks ago. Joe gave her a call to arrange a visit and the work days. Mrs. Wiley answered the phone suspiciously and, on hearing that we were calling about her windows, staunchly insisted that she didn’t want no windows and never called about getting new windows. Joe eventually talked her down and explained that the windows would be installed free of charge, which is a pretty compelling cause for any homeowner to listen further.

Shortly thereafter we visited Mrs. Wiley, and she was exactly the opposite of our impression of her from the phone call - Friendly and outspoken, she made sure we had been to church last Sunday and let us know that we were “handsome, not her color though.” Her manner and charm made me believe that she could get anyone to go along with her way.

On the other hand, I had met three of Jim’s children and his wife before I finally met him. One of his sons, Mark, has spent a good deal of time at the Farm over the past few years, so I probably knew Mark best leading up to this encounter with Jim.

Mark is an intelligent and earnest young man, and there’s probably not a soul who has met him who could deny it. One common manifestation of these two traits comes out in conversation: I found I could hardly answer a single one of Mark’s questions without having him finish the answer for me. On the positive side, it demonstrates an impressive breadth of thought, a sense of thoroughness. On the negative side, one feels one hasn’t added much to the conversation, sometimes.

Now it would be easy to assign this tendency in Mark to projected vices, such as pride or even arrogance. I think people tend toward their emotional responses - if one is annoyed, one projects an insidious cause. If one is charmed, one projects a benevolent cause. My projection onto Mark became overwhelmingly positive when I met his father.

Jim, to the fine details, conversed just like Mark. Since I knew what to expect, I fully enjoyed our meeting, and even (happily) asked Jim to install a storm door with a couple of the high school volunteers. This is a task I would, as a rule, be sure to supervise, since it’s an expensive item and the many precise steps can be difficult to follow exactly. Knowing Mark, I felt fully confident that I could leave the door to Jim and work on other things.

After pre-reading the directions and reading them again as he worked through the installation, Jim was eager to demonstrate for Mrs. Wiley the many useful features of the door. We asked Mrs. Wiley to come over to see the finished door.

“Oh Lord can you believe that? What a beautiful door! I didn’t ask for all of that.” (”I didn’t ask for all of that” should be read as an expression of bountiful graciousness).

“We just wanted to show you some of the nice things about this new door, Mrs. Wiley,” said Jim, leaning over to raise the glass in the window so that the screen could let air in and out. “You can open this in the Summertime and close it again to keep the cold air out in the Winter.”

“Oh, I can’t believe it!”

“Now, we want you to know that if you open the door all the way, it won’t quite close. But if you open it about 3/4 of the way, it’ll swing completely shut for you,” Jim said while demonstrating the two different open positions. The cause of this, which I didn’t interject at the time, is that the screws on the hinge side were not fully drilled in, which will be corrected later.

“That’s alright, it’s a fine door and I can’t thank you enough,” Mrs. Wiley said, satisfied with the presentation. But Jim had a few more features to demonstrate, and as he bent over to point one out, Mrs. Wiley said in the same stream of speech, “Oh, don’t tell me anymore!”

Now, at this point, “Don’t tell me anymore!” could be interpreted as another expression of graciousness, which might literally mean, “I can’t believe how many useful features this door has and I feel blessed because of it.”

“Down here is a door stop-” Jim said, before being interrupted.

“I said, don’t tell me anymore!” Still sounding gracious, it was clear that Mrs. Wiley now meant the phrase more literally, as in, “I’ve heard enough, and I no longer want to hear about the door.”

“Well, Mrs. Wiley, there’s just one more thing I want to show you, and you don’t even have to remember,” said Jim, bending over to find the metal door stop.

As Jim turned his attention back to the door, Mrs. Wiley turned to me and gave me the most priceless facial expression. It said, “Can you BELIEVE this man is going to keep talking after I told him twice, ‘Don’t tell me anymore!’?”

She respectfully let Jim finish, though it was indeed clear that she wasn’t going to remember what he was saying. Everyone went away satisfied, most especially me.

It is true that life’s treasures can’t be bought and sold.