PRIME TIME is not a skills-based program and is designed to complement other literacy training available at libraries. Typically the program is offered by a partnership that consists of the library, a scholar/discussion leader, a storyteller, and a statewide organization representative. In addition to the Humanities Council and the 

Cabell County library, this West Virginia pilot project includes Dr. Edwina Pendarvis of Marshall University as the scholar and Rick Wilson as the storyteller. Margot Durbin from the library and Robert Herrick, program officer for the West Virginia Humanities Council, will coordinate the program.

"The West Virginia Humanities Council is excited to be part of this nationwide effort to help families to learn to read together in a humanities-based project," said executive director Ken Sullivan. "This project offers an opportunity for the Humanities Council and the Cabell County library to expand family literacy opportunities and make a significant contribution to a more literate society."

PRIME TIME programs at the Cabell County Public Library will take place once a week for six weeks. At each program, reading and discussion leaders will conduct 90-minute meetings for parents and their children. At each session, storyteller Rick Wilson will present stories and will model reading aloud. Dr. Pendarvis will serve as the discussion leader. A library representative will introduce families to library resources and services.

(304) 528-5700

mdurbin@cabell.lib.wv.us

or

Robert Herrick, WV Humanities Council

(304) 346-8500

Where: Fairmont State College

To apply, write or call: Dr. Judy Byers
School of Language and Literature
1201 Locust Avenue
Fairmont, WV 26554
(304) 367-4286 or 4403

When: June 19-30, 2000 Fairmont State College

The faculty of The College of West Virginia will introduce the various depictions of the Appalachian region and its people in a major American art form—the motion picture. Teachers will explore sources in literature and the popular imagination for recurring images of the southern mountain region and develop the skills of the film critic in order to prepare curricular units for the classroom. Participants will interact with major contemporary representatives of the film industry. Presenters include Danny Boyd and John Nakashima and nationally-known producers/directors.

Where: The College of West Virginia

To apply, write or call: Dr. Maupsa Bonifer
Box AG
Beckley, WV 25802-2830
1-800-766-6067 ext.1439

When: July 10-21, 2000 The College of West Virginia

The Holocaust and Holocaust Education

Where:West Virginia University

To apply, write or call: Dr. Edith Levy
West Virginia Holocaust Commission
.O. Box 1125
Morgantown, WV 26507-1125

It has been more than a year since the Humanities Council purchased the house from Charleston's First Presbyterian Church and nearly three since its former owner, Miss Elizabeth Hubbard, left it for the last time. The preservation work has taken nearly nine months, beginning in the fall of 1999, and has left the old house exuding a sense of new life and fresh beginnings for a structure that has witnessed most of Charleston's history.

One can't help but wonder what its other owners would think of its most recent refurbishment. Mrs. MacFarland came as a bride and one of the home's first occupants. She would surely recognize the aroma of fresh paint and polish. The Ruby family lived here through several generations, repairing the ravages left by civil war. They would certainly appreciate the care it takes to make a house a home again. And the Crowleys — surely the Crowleys who gave the house its first big facelift came to know intimately the time, trouble, expense, and sheer, unmitigated mess it takes to renovate and restore a home.

But what about Miss Elizabeth — "Hubby" to her friends —what would she say about the thorough going over we've given her home? A woman of strong opinions, she would surely have much to say. One hopes that while she might disparage the fresh paint as looking "too new" she would appreciate the care that has been taken to replicate a style in keeping with the house's history and to minimize the intrusion of the modern world.

Attention to detail is evident in every room. Wherever possible carpenters have salvaged original elements and incorporated them into the new work. In the few places where doorways in the upstairs offices were changed to meet modern fire codes, carpenters carefully removed mouldings, doors, or baseboards from the area to be closed off and saved them for use at the new site. On the first floor, where certain doorways had to be widened to allow wheelchair access, the carpenter shop made new, wider doors identical in appearance to the originals.

According to architect Paul Marshall, a pastel palette lending toward earth tones was the aesthetic of both the 1830s and the 1920s, the two periods when the house was either being built or undergoing its most notable renovation until the present. This palette has been adhered to both on the interior and exterior of the house.

Outside the house has been painted in shades of grey accented with white, much as it was in Miss Elizabeth's day. No one consulted locally could ever remember the house as anything but grey, so grey it is. The sole concession to a perhaps more modern aesthetic is the front door, painted deep red as opposed to its previous white, giving the house a splash of drama when viewed from Kanawha Boulevard.

Inside, each room displays a range of tones of the same color — lightest on the walls or "field," as the architects call it; darker on wooden mouldings and baseboards; and darkest on the wide plaster cornice between ceiling and walls. The finished effect is one of subtle, yet dramatic, shadings suitable to each room's intended use.

The foyer and stairwell welcome visitors with soft, sunshine yellows. The parlor, with its multiple french doors opening onto the front porch and lawn, glows in shades of pale green. The sun room, which almost cries out for chintz and potted palms, turns up the drama a bit through incorporating more intense shades of the parlor's green. And the combined dining room and library, where the Humanities Council board will meet when in Charleston, is elegant in shades of sepia and tan. Even the kitchen, not a part of the historic area, harks back to an earlier period, mimicking Miss Elizabeth's kitchen with white walls and cabinets, red counter tops, and the further period embellishment of a black and white checkerboard floor.

The care that was taken in the preservation was not only in respect of the historic integrity of the old mansion but also in recognition of the trust the community had placed in the West Virginia Humanities Council in supporting its acquisition of this Charleston landmark. This trust has been expressed in many ways, not the least of which was financial.

Even before the Humanities Council officially expressed interest in the Hubbard House, members from the history-preservation community were calling its office to encourage the Council's board and executive director to consider taking on what would become the organization's largest, most expensive project to date.

Throughout the purchase and preservation processes local media enthusiastically covered the history and importance of the house and featured phases of its restoration.

And, of course, the trust evidenced by the outpouring of financial support from individuals, foundations, and businesses can never be overstated. The capital campaign to raise purchase and preservation funds is, by far, the largest amount of money the Humanities Council has ever raised. It would have been a daunting undertaking had not the Kanawha Valley community — and benefactors from around the state and nation —come forward with generous financial support.

While the Humanities Council is mindful that the fundraising campaign has work yet to do — around $250,000 of the $900,000 goal has yet to be raised, the board and other fundraising principals are confident that the campaign will conclude successfully. The preservation of the Hubbard House has captured the imagination and interest of a diverse group of contributors, and the unveiling of the splendid work their generosity has made possible will, it is believed, give new momentum to the campaign. Once again, the house will speak eloquently for itself.

During the dirtiest phases of the renovation it was often hard to imagine this beautiful end product. Blair Lee of Allegheny Restoration, the project's general contractor, is well-pleased with the results. A quiet man, more given to understatement than hyberbole, Blair often looks around the house with a little smile. "The old place has really come together," he says.

From her writing it is clear she was an historic preservationist at heart. In her two-page account Hosterman relates some of her experiences in sketching the homes featured in the Kanawha book and others by Mrs. Dayton. Of one Charleston house she writes:

"I made sketches of a beautiful old. . . home, right in the heart of Charleston, which bore witness of The Civil War with cannonball imbedded at roof line. After several days, hoping to put a few final touches on the drawing, [I] returned, but to my amazement it was just a level lot made into a parking lot for a doctor's office building."

Did Hosterman confuse the cannonball story from the MacFarland-Hubbard House with another home? And might that home have been the Rand House that sat next door, which Dayton says was ready for demolition when she was writing her Kanawha book?

E-mail Jane Siers (Campaign information)

The Encyclopedia office is located just around the corner from the council library, so resources are at hand for fact checking and copy editing. In that regard, some summer help has been hired. From June through August, WVU history graduate student Paul Rakes will work with the project.

Project planners have now raised nearly a quarter-million dollars for the Encyclopedia. The lead sponsors are the State of West Virginia and the West Virginia Historical Education Foundation. Other sponsors, in addition to CNR, include the Bernard McDonough Foundation, Bell Atlantic-West Virginia, United Bankshares, Marshall University’s John Deaver Drinko Academy, Union Carbide Foundation, Bernard H. & Blanche E. Jacobson Foundation, Herscher Foundation and the General Lewis Inn. The project continues to seek individual, corporate, and foundation support.

More than 350 writers have written for the West Virginia Encyclopedia or are now at work on articles for the big book. The Encyclopedia, originally expected to be published this fall, isscheduled for completion in 2001. It’s a big job, but the Humanities Council has the commitment of many West Virginians — both in time and money — to see it through.

E-mail the Encyclopedia Staff

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the valuable information that was sent me. This information will be a valuable resource to me as a future teacher. It will be beneficial for teaching elementary students about the region in which they live — also because it can be used across the curriculum.

Shanna Stotler

Fairmont

Dear Humanities Council:

I saw by the April Calendar that Booker T. Washington [Joe Bundy, History Alive!] was to be a part of the program at Glade Springs on April 13.

It is probably well-known that the Booker of his name was the name of the family where he was a slave. As I heard it, the "T" never was a part of a name, but he just thought he needed something in his name's middle. The Washington part was one of respect. My great grandfather, Thomas Francis Holt, lived near Malden in an area known as Burning Springs near what is now known as Rand. He had some responsibility with the salt furnace which was nearby. It may be gone now, but I know it was there as late as 1950 when I was driving back and forth to the DuPont plant on up the river a bit. Gramps also had a store nearby. After slaves were declared free, Gramps had ex-slave Booker working some at the store and at the salt furnace as well. . . .

I remember well the stories that my grandmother told me about Booker.

Dear Humanities Council:

The GRIFFIN has been in six publications from all over the state, but 100% of the people that talk to me about it have said they "read it in People & Mountains." TREMENDOUS article!! We really appreciate all you've done for this project!

Brad Stalnaker

WV Public Television

Morgantown

Although the ballad is considered "North Carolina’s principal single contribution to American folk song," many claim the song originated and the tragic murder it describes took place in West Virginia. Some believe that history repeats itself, and these two similar events occurring years apart in North Carolina and West Virginia seem to bear that out.

The murder of Naoma Wise is well documented through North Carolina court records and early texts. In 1808 Naoma Wise was murdered in Randolph County, North Carolina, probably by a young man named John Lewis. The incident took place after a meeting at Adam’s Spring, where Naoma had gone to meet Lewis, her lover. He is thought to have drowned her in the Deep River near a place known today as Naoma’s Ford. Lewis escaped to Kentucky but was later captured and brought back to North Carolina where he stood trial for the crime. The jury acquitted him, but Lewis is said to have confessed to the murder a few years afterward on his deathbed.

The story of Naoma Wise has been immortalized through a folk song tradition that has spread far and wide. In 1817 an "eyewitness" to the events surrounding Naoma’s death wrote an account. This became the source for another version, The Story of Naomie Wise, or The Wrongs of a Beautiful Girl, published in a pamphlet in 1874 by "Charlie Vernon." This was the pen name for Rev. Braxton Craven, who became president of Trinity College in Randolph County, North Carolina. Born in 1822, Craven may have heard first-hand accounts of the 1808 incident. His account includes the . . . poem, "Poor Naomi," on which most variants and recordings of the Omie Wise folk song appear to be based . . . .

Craven’s 1874 poem was reprinted several times, the last being in 1952. By the early to mid twentieth century, the folk song about Omie Wise was widely known. Variants have turned up in 

poetry, prose, and song in numerous sources. Tragedies sung about a girl named variously Naoma, Naomi, Omie, Oma, Omi, Ona, Oni, Loni, etc., have been collected throughout the South. A similar song motif shows up in African American tradition and dialect in Kentucky. Claims to the murdered girl in the incident that generated the song also have come from Indiana and Missouri.

Randolph County, West Virginia, also claims the poor girl. By examining the processes through which the Naoma Wise song/story has been disseminated in West Virginia, I began to understand the irrelevance of factual origins as they relate to folk song variants and legends.

My interest in Naoma Wise began in 1976 when Leroy Wingfield (born 1906), a resident of Randolph County, West Virginia, mentioned to me that the poor little girl of ballad fame actually had been drowned in the Cheat River, the major watershed of north central West Virginia. I made a mental note but brushed off the possibility as a bit of misinformation. I knew the North Carolina song well and was aware of its origin in that state.

In 1992 an acquaintance told me she had found a solitary grave in the woods on a mountainside near Cheat River in Randolph County. The grave, she said, was marked "Naomi Wise." The marker stated that the stone had been set in 1968 by a group connected to the Randolph County Historical Society. How does a grave on a hillside in Randolph County, West Virginia, end up with the name Naomi Wise chiseled in granite? I found the mystery irresistible, and many were ready to offer explanations.

Subsequently, Leroy Wingfield recounted that during the Depression he was helping his father-in-law cut timber on family property near the Cheat River when he noticed some roses growing in a clump in the woods. On closer inspection, he made out what appeared to be a grave site. Curious, he asked local gristmiller Robert Channel who was buried in the grave. Channel gave Wingfield some startling news: "That lassie was kinfolks to you!" The woman buried in the grave was Wingfield’s mother’s half sister.

Channel told Wingfield he had helped pull the drowned girl out of the millrace and bury her on the hill above the river. It was then that Leroy Wingfield began to suspect the dead girl was Naoma Wise . . .

In 1967 Wingfield heard that Charles Chapman and his wife, Odie, were documenting cemeteries and graves in the county. He walked into the Southern States farm supply store in Elkins, where Chapman worked, and asked if he might want to add a grave to his list. Chapman said he would if there was some proof of who was buried in it. Wingfield replied that it was his mother’s half sister Naoma Wise, of ballad fame . . .

In reality, an event in 1808 entered oral tradition; a text (Woody, 1917) and a pamphlet (Craven, 1824) were published, distributed, and re-published numerous times; and, more than one hundred years later, a song version of the story was commercially recorded by various artists and reentered oral tradition in West Virginia. The song was collected and deemed a West Virginian folk song in 1941 by Marie Boette. Boette made a field recording of Hazel Karickhoff singing her version of the song and published it in 1971. The Chapmans then read the account in Boette’s book, Singa Hipsy Doodle and Other Folksongs of West Virginia, and told Leroy Wingfield about it. From there the story got to Jim Comstock, the celebrated newspaper editor and publisher of The West Virginia Hillbilly, who put the new myth into the West Virginia Songbag and the West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia (1974, 1976), consecrating Naoma Wise as a "bonafide" West Virginian.

Through the folk process, historic reality evolved and changed to concur with oral tradition or the text of the recorded song . . . . Oral traditions have meaning and purpose. People need folk heroes, heroines, and villains, and poor little Naoma was ripe for the claiming. In early texts, she quickly became a beautiful trusting girl who was violated and murdered by a dark and sinister ne’er-do-well. She was viewed as a folk heroine of noted beauty and innocence, despite living in an age when her actual deeds were beyond the respectable social choices available to women. Accordingly, she was immortalized through folk song and narrative.

Along with a need to create and adopt such a heroine, my West Virginia informants and regional published sources maintain a sense of native pride bolstered by provincial ownership. Knowing of, or in Wingfield’s case believing to be related to, the immortalized heroine of a backcountry tragedy provides the motive to find a way to claim ownership. Local "historians" commemorated the event, the memory, and the ownership rights by placing a stone wall around the spot where the old rose bush has about expired. Accounts are published describing how this girl belongs to West Virginia, despite the claims of other states. Occasionally someone stumbles onto the grave, reads the historical marker there, and the "true facts" of the case get reaffirmed in a local newspaper or other publication.

The Naoma Wise story has bounced in and out of the written record, popular culture, recorded and unrecorded song, oral story and legend, regional traditions, racial groups, and geography for 185 years. No doubt it will continue. The "murdered girl" motif will crop up again in another time and another place, and Naoma’s song may get recycled yet again. Through it all, may the poor little victims, whoever they are, rest in peace.

Copyright 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky. Reprinted with permission.

The Naomi Wise excerpt above comes from Chapter 6 of Play of a Fiddle by Gerald Milnes, folklife coordinator of the Augusta Heritage Workshop. Research for the book was funded in part by a fellowship from the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Poor Naomi
Come all good people, I'd have you draw near,

My grade school days were spent in a rural Ritchie County schoolhouse during the 1920s. A one-room wood structure, the building was located in a pasture-field, and sometimes the cows would graze around it. The school lot was not fenced, and the surrounding field was our playground. The pasture fence ran between the schoolhouse and a dirt road where teams of horses occasionally passed by, pulling wagons loaded with oil-field supplies for the Hope Natural Gas Company.

The classroom had windows down each side and a wooden floor treated with oil to control dust. A coal stove in the center of the room provided heat, but we had no light except that which came through the windows. Drinking water was carried by bucket from nearby homes, and each student furnished his or her own drinking cup or made one daily from paper. Toilet facilities were two small buildings behind the school house, each supplied with a Sears Roebuck catalogue. There were desks for 30 to 36 students in our school room, although enrollment was usually only 14 to 18 students, from primer through eighth grade.

Once seated we started our day with a song and a scripture reading. Morning classes consisted of reading, spelling, arithmetic, and penmanship with a fifteen-minute recess at 10:15 and lunch hour from noon to 1:00. Students in the higher grades aided the younger children in studying their lessons. A "recitation bench" sat in front of the teacher’s desk, and each grade was called up to recite there. Our "blackboard" was the boards of the front wall painted black with a narrow shelf nailed to the wall for holding chalk and erasers. Afternoon classes were English, history, and geography, with rotating days of hygiene or agriculture. Classes were recessed for another fifteen minutes at 2:30, but if we seemed sleepy during the afternoon the teacher would have everyone stand and do exercises. On Friday afternoons we held spelling bees or ciphering (arithmetic) matches. School was dismissed at 4:00.

Our textbooks included Child’s World Readers through the third grade and Elison Readers through the eighth grade, Elementary Arithmetic by Samuel Hamilton and The Mastery of Words, a spelling book by Sarah Louise Arnold. Books were not furnished by the school. Each family purchased their own children’s books, and copies were passed down to the younger children as their older brothers or sisters were promoted. It was not unusual for several children from the same family to attend the school at the same time. My sisters and brother were in the classroom with me.

Punishment was not a frequent occurrence. Usually just being made to sit in the front of the room or stand near the teacher’s desk for fifteen minutes or so was all that was necessary. If "a whipping" was in order, the teacher broke a switch from a nearby tree and sent all the students outside except the one being punished. If a student’s lessons were not as good as the teacher expected, he or she might be required to stay inside during recess to study or to stay late after the other children were dismissed to go home.

At recess and after lunch on nice days in the spring and fall we played games in the schoolyard —tag, prisoner’s base, volleyball, baseball, anti-over, and fox and goose. Rainy days kept us inside playing "I Spy," "Button," or "Going Out West." On snowy winter days we went "sleigh riding." Our sleds were homemade and included "bob-sleds" which were made in two sections (the rider on the first section did the steering, and four or five passengers rode on the second section hitched behind the first) and "skippers." (A "skipper" was a flat board with a seat built on it.)

Snowy December was an exciting time for us at school where we prepared a Christmas program and decorated our tree. The older boys were excused from class on one day to cut the tree in nearby woodland while the girls and younger students stayed behind making decorations. We strung wire across the front of the room and fastened sheets to it to make a curtain for the "stage" where we would present our Christmas program. On the day of the program parents and friends visited the schoolhouse to enjoy the day with us. Students exchanged gifts, most of which had been purchased at our local country store with money earned trapping rabbits for sale to the local grocer or cracking black walnuts we had gathered and selling the kernels. Another opportunity for celebration arose in the spring when, just before school let out for the summer, we held an Exhibition Day. Parents and friends came to watch as we presented our year’s accomplishments.

More than just a building, our school was an integral part of our community. And I remember my days there with great fondness.

The school is composed of grade level "pods." Classrooms are open, with no partitions, and students quickly learn to pay attention to their own teacher and to "tune out" other noises and distractions. The school is centrally heated and air-conditioned, with carpeted floors, in-class restrooms and water fountains, and many tables where students work with only a few individual student desks.

The school day begins at 8:00 a.m., with free or reduced cost breakfast served to qualified students in the multi-purpose room — a gym/cafeteria/auditorium all in one. After breakfast, children enter their homeroom "pod" by 8:15 to begin their day. One of the two classroom teachers (some rooms have three) takes the lunch roll. Children pick up their textbooks, sharpen pencils, put their jackets on the coat rack, and unpack and secure their bookbags for the day.

Over the PA system a student volunteer announces, "Good morning. It is now time for the pledge. Those who wish to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance may do so." The principal follows with birthdays and other reminders.

Each grade level has a somewhat different schedule. Classes may begin with gym or music (on alternating days) for 40 minutes. While their students are engaged in these activities, classroom teachers have a planning period and may call or meet with parents as the need arises.

Either math or reading follows in the second and third periods. These two classes, which last for sixty minutes, are taught simultaneously to the students in the homeroom "pod." For a short time, children with special needs leave the classroom to receive instruction from the special education teacher. Following the recess a short working break allows students to visit the restroom or to eat a snack brought from home or purchased from a school vending machine.

A thirty-minute recess on a fenced playground follows reading and math. With two or three teachers supervising, students engage in a variety of activities, including kickball, basketball, tag, swinging, jumping rope, or chatting with their friends. Sometimes recess is held indoors if the weather is bad, and students play board games and socialize.

After recess, the students have ten minutes of work time, followed by a thirty-minute lunch period. They may choose lunches from a choice bar, with daily entrees, and a salad bar. Some bring their lunch. There are usually two or three teachers on lunch duty to maintain "law and order" in the lunchroom.

Afternoon classes consist of language arts (English, spelling, handwriting, and creative writing), career awareness, and guidance/counseling/health on alternating days. Another math class follows these, with science and social studies rounding out the school day.

There are other activities, as well, during a typical day. Each student spends at least ninety minutes a week in the computer lab working on assignments or searching the Internet for information. Computers are also used for the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, which permits a student to read books on level and then to test on them. Points are awarded for each completed assignment. These points may be redeemed at the end of the year in the AR store for such popular items as tee shirts, pens, and other articles. Children may enter numerous county and state contests, including the Young Writers and Public Speaking contests, the Spelling Bee, Science and Social Studies fairs, and Math Field Day.

With greater emphasis on national testing, teachers spend much time preparing their students for the SAT test that must be taken in the spring. The Responsible Students Program encourages learning by allowing children the opportunity to earn tickets for activities that they do well and to redeem them for rewards. The school sends home a monthly newsletter to keep parents informed of school activities and opportunities.

With safety becoming of increasing concern, the school follows a Crisis Management Plan, which includes procedures for fire drills, protection from intruders, and proper responses to a chemical emergency. The plan also includes policies for handling disruptive behavior in the classroom. Requiring students to sit in the corner or temporarily removing them from the classroom are the most common methods for dealing with undesirable behavior.

Parents may visit the school any time they wish and may sit with their children in class providing that they request a visitor's pass from the principal's office and agree to participate in the classroom activities involving their child.

Changes of technology and physical surroundings notwithstanding, our West Virginia schools remain a vital force in their communities.

Eileen Stanley is employed by the West Virginia Historical Education Foundation. Julia Brown is a teacher in the Fayette County school system.

General Public Candidates

Shuan Butcher, Roy E. Givens, Warren Snyder