As a child, H.C. Ratliff was always sick.
   Despite his frequent ailments, it took more than 20 years before doctors discovered the cause.
   Pam Hinkle remembers the day her father was diagnosed with diabetes. She was only around eight years old, but that moment would forever change her life.
   It was the moment she would begin her life-long passion for treating and preventing diabetes.
   Hinkle's childhood in Garden Creek was filled with joyful memories.
   Ratliff was a creative father, always getting his children interested in creating toys out of ordinary items. Together with her siblings, Debi, Ginger, Jo Ann and Todd, Hinkle spent much of her early years playing with boats made out of milk cartons and toy guns and doll beds whittled out of old furniture, which their dad found abandoned on the side of the road.
   "I never knew we were poor until I got older," she says. "We always had lots of fun. There was never a bad atmosphere at home."
   That atmosphere was always hopeful, she remembers, due in large part to their mother Ruby.
   Other than insisting on regular check-ups for her children, she never let diabetes control their lives. But that didn't prevent the children from seeing her determination at finding new doctors and treatments for her husband.
  "She went through as much as Daddy because she was always hunting for people to help him," Hinkle says. “Her encouragement has meant as much to me as Daddy’s disease.”
   Before his death in 1984, Ratliff exhausted almost every type of treatment for the disease.
   Mainly due to his wife and the interest and determination of his family doctor, Dr. Robert F. Baxter, he became synonymous with new treatment options and equipment in Buchanan County. Hinkle remembers Dr. Baxter sending her father to Duke University to receive a glaucoma test kit, which was newly-introduced to the medical world at that time and was around the size of a car battery.
   Despite Dr. Baxter's efforts, Ratliff continually battled diabetes.
   While working at United Coal Company, he began losing his vision and the nerves in his hands and feet deteriorated. Regardless, he worked long after he should have, Hinkle says.
   "He didn't want anybody to know," she says. "It seemed to me that it made him feel like he wasn't as strong as someone else. Almost like, he was ashamed of it."
   Through the years, he never missed a day of work.
   But, on one tragic day, the complications associated with his disease finally caught up with him.
   Fixing one of the trucks at United Coal Company with his arm wrapped around a hydraulic system, he couldn't feel the heat burning into his skin. Soon, he began to smell something burning and looked at his arm, only to discover the hydraulic system had burnt it all the way down to the bone.

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
    Students who attend the Buchanan County Public School System will head back to the classroom Monday, August 21 as the start of the 2006-2007 academic year gets underway.
    School will be on a full day schedule and buses will run their normal runs.
    Unlike in year’s past when school has started on a Thursday, this year’s term will begin on a Monday.
    Superintendent Tommy P. Justus noted previously the reason for the Monday start this year is to allow teachers, who return to the classroom on Tuesday, August 15, additional time to attend in-service training sessions and to prepare for the arrival of their students.
    Several in-service sessions have also been set for this week, including one for principals and assistant principals on survival skills for principals and another for science teachers in grades K-12.
    Next week, a language arts teachers workshop is slated for teachers of students in grades four through eight and a school testing coordinator data remediation workshop is also set. Next Friday, a school law session will be held with principals, assistant principals and supervisors.
    In-service workshops planned for the first day teachers arrive back in their schools this month include one on classroom management for PreK-third grade teachers; another for fourth through eighth grade teachers; and a third for teachers of students in grades nine through 12.
   A special education personnel and Title I personnel workshop is also set for the first day as is a workshop defining sexual harassment, which is being held for all professional personnel. All activity teachers, including band, library, music, art and health and physical education teachers will have an in-service workshop on the first day as well.
   The workshop will also be held on August 16 for activity teachers.
    Additional workshops planned August 16 include those on differentiated instruction for teachers of grades kindergarten through three; another for teachers of grades four through eight; and a third for teachers of students in grades nine through 12.
    OWL curriculum training will be held for pre-K teachers on August 15 and a drug policy and bloodborne pathogens in-service is set for all professional staff on August 16.

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
    Buchanan County’s two post graduate programs are gearing up for the start of a new academic year as the Appalachian School of Law and the University of Appalachia College of Pharmacy prepare to welcome their first year students to campus.
    Meanwhile, Southwest Virginia Community College students will return for the 2006-2007 academic year on August 23.
    ASL expects some 170 first year students, its largest first year enrollment ever. Some 110  second year students and 100 third year law students are also expected, bringing total school enrollment to 380.
    UACP will welcome its second first-year class of students, expected to number 65 and its 68 second year students will continue their studies in the three-year doctor of pharmacy program. Total enrollment is projected at 133. Additionally, UACP welcomed its new dean, Dr. Sue Cantrell, to campus on August 1.
    ASL will hold orientation and introduction to law classes for first year students beginning Monday, August 14. Fall semester classes will begin on August 21.
    ASL plans a business fair on August 14 which will allow area businesses to introduce themselves to new students. Registration from businesses planning to attend is now being accepted.
    At UACP, orientation and registration for first year students is set for August 14. The white coat ceremony will be held on August 16 at the Garden campus and classes will officially start on August 17.
    A business/vendor fair will be held at the pharmacy school's Slate Creek campus on August 15 from 1 to 4 p.m.. Businesses interested in registering may do so by August 10. UACP also plans a career fair for late October.