Today's Features

Paisley Brooke Snider turned two Feb. 1. She celebrated with a Dora the Explorer party at the Carroll County Public Library with family and friends. Her parents are Curtis and Lorie Snider.

She has two older sisters, Paisley and Blair Snider. Her grandparents are Danny and Linda Deskins of Dugspur and Harold and Joyce Snider of Dublin and the late Kathy Snider. Her great-grandparents are Pauline Marshall of Laurel Fork and Freida Deskins of Hillsville. Her special aunts are Holly Choate and Gina Bigham.

Randall Zelmer Warf, a World War II veteran who had seen the world past “the Ridge,” had a dream of getting out of the Gossan mines for his family’s sake after returning to the Carroll County community.
Warf never got to fulfill that dream because he died at 27 in a mining accident in the early morning hours of May 1, 1947, according to family members.

Gossan Mines shaped life in the Iron Ridge community of Carroll County for 57 years, while workers hauled pyrrhotite ore out of the ground for General Chemical.
Mine superintendent Fred E. Johnson oversaw the day-to-day operations at Gossan as part of an international mining career.
Always associated with the extractive industry in his professional life, Johnson earned the moniker “Hardrock.”

Virginia Tech article, reprinted with permission
BLACKSBURG — International agriculture education may be a tool for national security, according to research by Austin Larrowe of Woodlawn, a junior at Virginia Tech.
Larrowe is one of 72 students representing 66 U.S. colleges and universities and selected by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress to be part of the Presidential Fellows program for 2012-13.
Each student has worked on an individual research project throughout the year and will turn in their completed paper in May.