After nearly two years of conversing through Internet message boards, Grundy High School finally met the Norweigian students on the other end of the computer.
        The teenagers form Horten High School in Norway could have chosen to go anywhere in the world for their class trip. But, they chose Grundy, Virginia and arrived here last week.
        "In many ways it feels unreal to be here after the 32 hours it took to get here," Horten teacher Tommy Moum says. "It's a lot like coming home."
        It all began in 2003 when Moum came back to Southwest Virginia Community College, where he'd visited for a year through the exchange program there in 1998. THis time, he brought several Norweigian teachers along with him to learn more about American culture and education. After spending time listening to lectures by many SVCC professors, the teachers had the opportunity to visit local public schools.
         "By chance, I ended up here with a few of my colleagues at Grundy High School," Moum says.
        It was there he met GHS English teacher Debbie Raines, who expressed interest in his idea to bring student from Horten and Grundy together through information technology. Three year sin the making, the program was finally brought to life through the Oral Communications Seminar. Designed to teach foundational oral communication skills and their appreciation to gifted high school juniors, the after-school seminar requires students participate in readings of various story genres. It was during the 2004-2005 school year that Moum created profiles and passwords for Grundy students on Horten's educational website. There, students from both schools were able to post messages on an online message board. According to Moum, the topics of discussion range from the casual to the more serious.
        "It's never boring," says Moum of the message board. "It's quite interesting to see new things pop up on there all the the time."
        This year, another class of students were able to participate in the seminar. And, when Moum's 21 Horten juniors were deciding where they wanted to take their class trip, they didn't have to think about it long.
 

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
       Members of the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors continued to work on a proposed $41.3 million budget last Monday.
      Board members tentatively agreed to several cuts and authorized County Administrator W.J. Caudill to prepare a proposed document for consideration at next week’s regular meeting.
       None of the changes agreed to -- whether cuts or increases -- were formally approved by the board and all are subject to further change or revision.
       A public hearing must also still be held on the budget before the board takes formal action to approve it.
     Tentatively agreed to was a $1,500 across the board raise for county employees to take effect July 1. State employee raises, which are currently listed at the rates proposed by constitutional officers in the budgets they submitted for approval would take effect in December.
        In discussing the budget, board members projected revenues at some $35.8 million -- less than the $36.62 million taken in during fiscal 2005. With the closure of VP-8, Caudill noted the amended revenue amount should take care of the anticipated reduction in mineral taxes from that closure. It was noted that the VP-8 mine accounted for about $800,000 to $1 million in county revenues annually.
       Increases in gas tax collections, however, he said, offset the reductions in coal taxes collected.
      With the county’s healthy fund balance, Caudill said there appears to be enough in funding to take care of several one-time expenses including a pledged $1 million to the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy; $1.5 million in school maintenance projects; $2.3 million for the Poplar Gap-Lover’s Gap project; and $700,000 to be used toward planned gym construction at Poplar Gap and Hurley.
       The proposed school budget remains as presented, with local funding of some $8.4 million projected.
       South Grundy Chairman Roger Rife noted that this year’s budget did not appear to be too much of a problem, however, he said, there would be problems next year if the board was not careful this year.
       Caudill noted he felt comfortable with predicting revenue at $35.8 million, noting it was above the $31.4 million collected to date with a quarter still to go, and below the $36.62 million actually collected in 2005.

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by JoBeth Wampler
Staff Reporter
         After a busy spring, Buchanan County Forest Warden David Tolliver is happy to see the wildfire season end.
         When the Virginia fire law, prohibiting outdoor fires before 4 p.m., goes out of effect at the end of this month, it will have seen 20 wildfires set in the county since Jan. 1. Seven alone occurred within 10 days.
         "That's when it was the driest with temperatures in the eighties," Tolliver said.
          Since forest fuels cure during the winter months, the danger of fire is higher in early spring than in summer when the forest and grasses are green with new growth. AS lawns become greener and tree leaves begin to sprout, Tolliver said the threat of wildfire is relatively low.
         "At the end of fire season, there's a fine line. We're getting to the point now that it's getting pretty safe," he said.
         That wasn't the case just over a week ago, when county wildfires destroyed several hundreds of acres of land.
          Some of the most widespread wildfires occurred April 10-15. On April 10 at Guesses Fork in Hurley, 456 acres burned as a result of arson. Through the week, Tolliver said several other arson wildfires were spread in Rosin Camp in Garden and at Convict Hollow in the Harman area, where 148 and 150 acres burned, respectively.

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