By: Paige Cline

Not everything chokes me up, but a couple things happened in the recent past that hit me pretty hard for a bit.

I ran into Bob and Margie Adams in Goodson’s parking lot and Bob asked if I had watched them tear down our old high school. I told him I had and he grinned and asked if I shed a tear. I admitted that I had. The sudden realization that a piece of our younger days was being leveled caused a swell of emotion not unlike the passing and burial of a good friend. 

I have a couple of bricks and a strip or two of the old flooring from the stage. The strips were unique in that they were narrower than the standard size which had long since replaced the narrower flooring of the gym. 

As many of you know from listening to me whining about it, since the paper first changed hands, the copies of the papers bound together by years and dating back to 1933, got misplaced somewhere in Huntington , home of the new parent company. 

Well, about a week ago, right before bedtime, I got a message. It was from Missy Nester, the new owner/publisher of the Independent Herald. It was a picture of all the volumes . That very day,someone in Huntington had informed her that there was a pallet of journals that looked like they belonged to the IH And wanted to know what to do with them . She told them to do nothing and jumped in a van along with a member of the crew of her Welch paper, flew to Huntington, loaded the papers and drove back home to Welch and unloaded what she referred to as “treasure”.  She was afraid to tell me that she was hoping to get the papers for fear that something would go wrong. 

She was right. Herbie  and I went to Welch and was almost overcome when I saw the actual papers there in no particular order, but safe. 

I tried to thank Missy but words were so inadequate. But, no need. Missy knew. Missy understood . Missy got it. Somehow she had gotten the message as to how much this stuff meant to me. And she didn’t stop until she found them. 

The story does not end there. When I told Rhonda , she agreed that these papers were history and should be shared. She volunteered to use her vehicles to bring the volumes to Pineville and use one of her empty buildings to display them and allow folks to search for whatever information they want. Rhonda shares that same respect for local history that some others do. 

There are old pictures too, and we hope to share those with you, and soon. 

Anyway, in the last few weeks, I have lost a school, found some history and had eye surgery. I guess it balances out.  

So how was your July?