Breaks Park Opens for Season, Friday

by Scotty Wampler
Staff Reporter
       The Breaks Interstate Park will officially open for the 2006 season Friday.
    With a long list of events already scheduled for the year, park Superintendent Carl Mullins is confident attendance will rebound from last year’s hurricane-induced lull.
       Mullins admitted recently park business was hurt somewhat last year by the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
        “Hopefully, it will pick up a little [this year],” he said.
       Mullins said park attendance fell about 30 percent following the massive storm.
       Among this season’s park improvements, Mullins said, are new bathrooms and new playground equipment in B campground. That, he said, along with a larger schedule of events, should help attendance rise again.
       The park also recently became a destination stop on “The Crooked Road,” Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail.
        To celebrate, the Breaks will kick off the season with an “Old Time Music Show” in the Conference Center on April 14, beginning at 7 p.m.
        Also in April, the park will host its 13th annual Easter Egg Hunt on the 15th. The hunt will take place at Potter’s Knoll at noon.
       Each weekend during the summer (beginning in May), the park will provide entertainment at the amphitheater. Programs will include bluegrass music, plays and square dancing.
        Friday and Saturday, May 12 and 13, the park will hold its first annual Old Time Music Festival at the Conference Center. The concert will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, and banjo and fiddle classes will be offered from 10 a.m. until noon Saturday morning. A Saturday evening concert is scheduled for 7 p.m.
        Bluegrass music will be provided by the park most Saturday evenings throughout the month of June and July, ending in mid-August. The first show, however, is scheduled for May 20 this year.
         Gospel singings will be held on three different weekends this season. The first, a Memorial Day Gospel Singing event, is scheduled for May 27-29 at the park’s amphitheater. The event features performances by groups from local and surrounding areas. Singing begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday and continues until 8 p.m. Singing will resume Sunday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and on Monday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

For more of the story, see the print edition of the Mountaineer, on sale at newsstands now.  For more information on how to subscribe to the Mountaineer, call 276-935-2123 today.

 Mapping Office Looks for 17 Road Rights of Way

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
        Seventeen roads in five districts proposed for inclusion in the 2006-2007 Buchanan County Coal Haul Road plan have right of way issues that are now in the process of being determined.
       According to County Road Engineer Marcus Stiltner, the mapping office has been unable to locate deeds or signed rights of way on the roads, which are all currently listed as part of the county road system.
      He presented copies of the road list to members of the board of supervisors last Thursday.
       Roads in the Hurricane and Knox districts are still being compiled and were not available at press time.
        In order to be included in this year’s coal haul road plan, however, Stiltner noted the right of way issues need to be resolved.
        The roads identified were not taken into the county system in 1987, when the road system was first formally established in the county. According to records in the mapping office, they were taken into the county on subsequent dates, but their status as county roads and their eligibility to remain as part of the coal road plan is contingent upon the location of rights of way and/or recorded deeds.
        Unless right of way issues can be resolved, then county money shouldn’t be spent on them, according to County Administrator W.J. Caudill.
      "Until the proper documents are discovered, or they are properly reprocessed, county money shouldn’t be spent on them," Caudill said.
        He said residents with right of way documents on the roads listed below are urged to contact the county mapping office to resolve the issues on those roads.

For more of the story, see the print edition of the Mountaineer, on sale at newsstands now.  For more information on how to subscribe to the Mountaineer, call 276-935-2123 today.