Mountain Mission School senior Miranda Elswick recently earned a perfect score on the writing section of her SATs.
  Graciously, she says it is all due to her English teacher at MMS, Patti Hertzog.
  "I'm sure if she would've edited my SAT paper, I wouldn't have earned a perfect score," Elswick says, laughing through her words.
  But, she adds, it's Hertzog's challenging teaching methods that have impacted her writing style the most.
  "She has always demonstrated a knack for language," Hertzog says.
  While she says she spent a lot of time working with students on the basic principals of the English language, Elswick seemed to be a natural, grasping different sentence structures and the meaning of a vast array of words.
  "I think I'm going to flunk her just so I can keep her in class," Hertzog says, jokingly. "She's been a gift all the way around."
  When she discovered her prized student had earned a perfect score on the writing section of her SATs, she says she was pleasantly surprised but also expectant.
  "You're surprised any time you hear someone has earned a perfect score on their SATs. But, I knew if anybody was going to do it, it would be her," she says.
  Elswick also credits her education at Mountain Mission School as another factor contributing to her success.
  "I feel like this is definitely where I'm supposed to be," she says.
  Unlike most Buchanan County residents, she says she is blessed to attend a school with a strong Christian environment and to discover new experiences regularly, being exposed to different cultures and foods.
   The hour-long writing section of the SATs includes two portions – a 35-minute multiple choice questions section and a 25-minute student-written essay.
  According to the College Board, the short essay measures a student's ability to organize and express ideas clearly, develop and support the main idea, and use appropriate word choice and sentence structure.
  Students are asked to develop a point of view on an issue, using reasoning and evidence – based on their own experiences, readings or observations – to support their ideas.
  According to Elswick, she believes the essay question referenced the benefits or downfalls of today's advancing technology.
  Looking at the issue from both sides of the fence, she says she wrote that she understood what improvements technology has made in our lives but also noted its detriment on families.
  At times, she says, technology takes away from family time.
  The essay is scored by two trained high school and/or college teachers, who give it a score from 1 to 6 (6 being the highest score) based on the overall quality of the essay and the student's demonstration of writing competence.
   The multiple choice writing questions measure the student's ability to improve sentences and paragraphs and identify errors, such as diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage and wordiness.
  The multiple choice writing section counts for approximately 70 percent and the essay counts for approximately 30 percent of a student's total raw score, which is used to calculate a 200-to-800 score.

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  Buchanan County and Town of Grundy officials will make their annual trek to Richmond next week to meet with state officials and to host a legislative reception Thursday, January 18 in Richmond.
  Several meetings have been set up throughout the day for local officials to attend and will find local officials meeting with the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Aviation, the Department of Housing and Community Development, representatives of the Community Development Block Grant program and members of the Southwest legislative delegation.
  The reception is planned for next Thursday at the Omni Hotel in Richmond from 5:30 to 8 p.m. .
  This year's reception is hosted on a regional basis and includes not only Buchanan County and the Town of Grundy as sponsors, but it is also hosted by the boards of supervisors from Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties, the City Council of Norton, the Lenowisco Planning District Commission, the Economic Development Authority of Scott County, and the industrial development authorities of Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise counties and the city of Norton.

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor  
  The hiring of an employee at the Council Park became a heated topic of discussion Monday during a meeting of the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors.
  Hurricane Supervisor William P. Harris noted he had hired Clarence Stevens to do some electrical work at the park, noting there was still more work to be done, and that while Stevens is on the board’s approved vendor services list, he does not have his own insurance, which Harris said is required in the vendor agreement.
  “How do I pay him legally?” Harris asked fellow board members and Assistant County Attorney Lee Moise.
  Harris said the vendor agreement calls for contractors to have $1 million liability insurance coverage, however he stated that while Stevens does not have that coverage, he is “pretty much a part-time employee.”
  South Grundy Supervisor Roger Rife expressed concerns over the manner in which the vendor agreements are applied and he said each supervisor ought to be following the same procedure.
  “One person can’t hire anybody unless you go before all the supervisors,” Rife said.
  He said he could recall two years ago when he tried to hire someone to operate/oversee the horse show ring at Poplar Gap Park and he noted it had to be the full board which took that action.
  “I had to go through that process and we followed the process and I expect everybody else to do it the same,” Rife said. “This is the second time in the last two to three months that this has happened.”
  Harris said he thought it was appropriate to hire Stevens if the funds for Stevens’ salary came out of his district funds.
  Stevens has submitted a time sheet for work performed during the month of December beginning December 5 and continuing to December 20 and details work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, not including weekends, for a total of eight hours per day for the period. A notation on the time sheet states the rate of pay as $10 per hour.
  Moise noted there is a procedure for vendor services agreements and he told board members they needed to do pre-approvals by the full board and “make sure you are following and going through the hoops for procurement.”
  “It’s not anything I intended to hide,” Harris said. “He’s working half price anyway.”
  Rife said that made no difference and he said until the board made things right, he would not vote to approve any bills.
  Board members then went into closed-session identifying the topic as one for discussion and also identifying another vendor services agreement related to Christine Looney in the Knox District for discussion.
  When board members emerged from behind closed doors, it was to amend the vendor service agreement policy to allow board members to use a vendor of choice in the event procurement is for less than $1,000; however, it also states that need for services will be submitted to the county administrator in writing, a notice will be posted in the courthouse, the county administrator’s office and on the county website soliciting proposals for providing specific services requested. It further states the county administrator will follow the small purchase procedure outlined in the county code.
  Vendor service agreements must also be in writing and approved in advance by a majority vote of a quorum of the board of supervisors. Lastly, the agreement states it will not extend beyond a 12-month period and states if service is required beyond a 12-month period, the selection of a new independent contractor will be made, however, the previous contractor is also eligible for consideration.
  The resolution was approved 7-0 on a motion by Knox Supervisor Pat Justus and second by Garden Supervisor Buddy Fuller.

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