The saying goes that lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, but when it comes to miracles, Betty, Grant and Joshua Huneycutt can attest to the fact that miracles aren’t necessarily a one-time thing.
        When 14-year-old Joshua was having difficulty breathing just walking to and from the driveway to the family’s Bedford area home, Betty Huneycutt feared the worst.
         She had good reason to do so as she thought about what doctors had told the family when Joshua was just a days-old infant recuperating from heart transplant surgery.
        Doctors then had said the heart young Joshua received would likely last until the youngster was five. It outlasted that by 10 years as Joshua neared his 15th birthday earlier this year.
        And so, as she feared the worst, Betty Huneycutt held on to faith.
       Betty is the former Betty Charles and was born and raised at Hurley. Joshua’s grandmother, Mazie Charles, still lives at Hurley, as do a number of aunts, uncles and cousins.
        "They’ve all been so good to help us," Betty says.
        The first part of Joshua’s story was featured in the Mountaineer in July 1992, when young Joshua was then just 17 months old and in for a visit to family.
       But unlike most 17-month-olds, Joshua had already been the recipient of what his mother immediately called "a miracle."
       When Joshua was just eight days old, he became the youngest person in the state of Virginia at that time to undergo -- and survive -- a heart transplant.
        He was born with a hypoplastic left heart -- a condition in which the left side of the heart, the major pumping part of the heart, does not develop.
        When he was two days old, he starting turning blue from poor circulation and was placed on the transplant list. Within 24 hours, a match was found through the help of LifeNet, an organ donation agency which serves the region.
        The surgery was done and Joshua thrived.
       In the intervening years, as Joshua grew and developed into a normal teenage boy, there was always the knowledge of how he got there and the fear that something would go wrong.
        In May 2005, he was diagnosed with coronary artery disease and Betty says his condition began to worsen. He couldn’t walk long distances and even short distances were getting to be a problem.
       The family was told then that the reality was Joshua would likely need another transplant, but the reality was also that he was not yet sick enough to be placed on the transplant list so the search for a new donor could begin.
 

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
       There seems to be a misunderstanding by some in the Knox District as to the purpose for the $1 million recently reimbursed to the county by the federal government, according to Knox Supervisor Pat Justus.
       Earlier this month, the U.S. Attorney visited Buchanan County to present the county with a check for a little more than $1 million. The monies came from assets forfeited by those who were found guilty and who are now serving time for their roles in the government’s Operation Big Coon Dog case.
       Justus said since then, he had been questioned by several residents about the funds and he said it had been apparent from those questions that some people in his district erroneously think the money is supposed to go to the Knox District or more specifically to Knox District residents.
     In fact, County Administrator W.J. Caudill noted the monies received reimburse the county’s general fund for money spent from all district tax dollars to make repairs which were needed in the Knox District in the wake of the Hurley flood of 2002.
       The county made the repairs needed at the time, paying for them with monies from the county’s general fund with the understanding those costs would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. However, when the coon dog scandal occurred, the reimbursements were halted. In fact, the county was even required to pay back some of the monies it had previously received as reimbursements when an audit of the program disallowed the funds due to the wrongdoing of some contractors doing work in the county at the time of the flood. Those contractors were subsequently indicted, convicted and are now serving time in federal prison.
      "The money reimburses the county for some of its costs related to debris removal and demolition that was previously paid by the county from the general fund," Caudill said. The monies received this month, Caudill pointed out represent a portion of the county’s expenditures that were not reimbursed by FEMA or VDEM.
       He noted that while the million dollars received this month reimburses the county for some of its expenses, it still falls short of giving the county back all of the monies it expended.
 

       The need to develop a uniform procedure when it comes to evaluating teachers was brought to the attention of the Buchanan County School Board last Monday during a meeting of the board.
       Virginia Education Association Cumberland UniServe Director Ernie Roberts told board members he had received several phone calls from members expressing concerns related to the evaluation process in Buchanan County.
        "The concern is over the procedure, or lack of procedure," Roberts said.
       He noted that currently, there are three forms and 17 pages worth of documents used for observation and evaluation. The forms list different criteria teachers or other personnel should meet. At the end of the year, a summative evaluation is recorded and it contains a place to recommend a re-evaluation cycle. The third form is a performance improvement plan.
         Roberts said it was his understanding all the forms used have been based on state board of education guidelines, but he added the forms themselves are not an evaluation procedure.
         "Criteria needs to be considered to formulate procedure," Roberts said.
        He stressed there is currently no set procedure for how often professional staff must be evaluated or what procedure administrators are to follow in performing evaluations.
        He noted the documents have to be included in that process, but he said the procedure should be a step-by-step method of conducting an evaluation.
        "Right now, Buchanan County has no evaluation procedure from one school to the next," Roberts said. "Principals use the documents as they see fit, but there are no guidelines as to how the forms are to be used to our knowledge and no guidelines as to purpose.
        "The result of not having a procedure is that evaluations are performed in a hap-hazard way varying from one principal to another, thus causing concern among school employees undergoing evaluation," Roberts continued, alleging, "the lack of procedure allows the evaluation to be utilized in a capricious manner and, at times, it is used as a retaliatory tool against some teachers."
        Roberts asked the board for permission to meet with the superintendent to collaborate and to cooperatively develop suggested procedure and guidelines for the evaluations to be done and ways to determine use.

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