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FROM H. JOHN ROGERS

By Staff | Apr 3, 2019

Dear Editor:

As you will know from your reading of The Book of Exodus, Moses when he first saw the “burning bush” was curious and went back and took a second look. [“And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the L-rd saw that he turned aside to see, G-d called unto him out of midst of the bush…” Ex. 3:3-4. KJV.]

There is a discussion in the Talmud of this passage wherein it is suggested that hundreds, perhaps thousands of persons may be have walked by the “burning bush” over the years but only Moses was curious enough to go back and take a second look. (It may have looked like one of our gas wells burning off. A few years back a well across from the old Ormet flared high for many days. Late one night, inspired by Moses, I stopped to take a “closer look.” The Almighty did not speak to me but I did frighten the solitary well tender!)

NOW, DEAR READER, I WILL COME TO THE POINT. (A man on “The City of New Orleans” in the early 1940s asked my sainted Mother: “Was that boy vaccinated with a phonograph needle?”):

I would like to advance a theory for the team name given to Pine Grove High School, i.e. the “Cyclones.” The origin of most of the other team names of the other high schools in the county (i.e. Hundred Hornets, Smithfield Lions, Valley Lumber Jacks, Reader Bulldogs, Paden City Wildcats) are rather obvious or in the case of VHS of recent vintage. The Magnolia Blue Eagles are all that is left of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act. Its symbol was the Blue Eagle and after the Supreme Court declared the Act unconstitutional MHS had sole custody of this bird.

This is the 75th anniversary of a Class IV tornado which tore through central West Virginia. Some 60-70 people were killed in Shinnston alone. On Simpson Hill in Pine Grove I clearly remember a playmate telling us about passing through Shinnston on a bus and seeing all that damage. Since I was only three, I was wondering if the tornado might have impressed the townsfolk as well. This in my working hypothesis and I will stick with it until it is affirmatively rejected by someone older than me from Pine Grove or that font of all educational wisdom, our distinguished Superintendent of Schools.

Respectfully submitted.

H. John Rogers