Private nonprofits in three West Virginia are now eligible to apply for federal disaster loans for damages caused by a March storm.
The U.S. Small Business Administration has added Fayette, Mercer and Tucker counties to the list of more than 20 counties where disaster loans are available for private nonprofits.
The low-interest loans are being offered to private nonprofits that provide non-critical services, such as food kitchens, homeless shelters, libraries and schools.
The SBA said Monday that June 1 is the deadline to apply for loans for physical property damage. Loan applications for economic injury must be submitted by Dec. 31.
Timberline Four Seasons Resort is using crowdfunding to raise money for improvements.
The Tucker County resort launched an online crowdfunding on Tuesday at www.snowfunding.com. The goal is to raise $75,000 in 65 days.
Timberline CEO Fred Herz tells The Charleston Gazette that the resort sees crowdfunding as a way to engage customers in its activities and planned undertakings.
He says crowdfunding gives customers a sense of belonging and participation.
Money raised by the crowdfunding will help pay for upgrading the ski lodge, hotel rooms and a terrain park.
Other planned improvements include additional hotel rooms and 40 new snow guns.
The Iditarod. Referred to as the Last Great Race on Earth. The annual long-distance sled dog race occurs in early March from Anchorage, Alaska, northwest…
The Iditarod. Referred to as the Last Great Race on Earth. The annual long-distance sled dog race occurs in early March from Anchorage, Alaska, northwest to Nome—just over 1000 miles. Mushers and a team of 16 dogs cover the distance in about a fortnight. But there’s another event, the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which covers the same route, but by foot, bike, or ski. This year, a Tucker County resident won the race on foot.
Credit Nils Hahn / The Nome Nugget newspaper
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The Nome Nugget newspaper
Dr. Logar is an emergency room physician who works in Randolph County. He’s part of a subculture of extreme ultra-athletes who do crazy things like race really long distances in difficult conditions. He says he doesn’t really remember when or how he became interested in the Iditarot, but last year he ran the qualifying 350-mile event, and after applying and being accepted to race the 1000-mile event this year, he paid the 1200-dollar fee, took some time off from the emergency room, and headed to Alaska.
The Iditarod Trail Invitational started off February 23. 23 days, 22 hours later, John Logar from Tucker County made it to Nome, Alaska. There were 7 who started the foot race.
“Five of us made it to Nome,” Logar says. “ I was the first person to get to Nome. But we [ultra-athletes] don’t really care. Winning is finishing.”
Tucker County Ready
Logar spends a lot of time bicycling, year-round, through Tucker County, W.Va. Steep slopes, dicey roads–not a lot of people are regularly biking through and around Tucker County no matter the weather.
“For me it’s a lifestyle of activity,” Logar says. “I don’t have a training program, I don’t have a regiment, I don’t have a diet, I attempt to be active every day, do something every day.”
Logar says the rolling-hill landscape of the coastal portion of the trip reminded him a lot of West Virginia. But covering 1000 miles is like driving from Morgantown to Naples, Florida—in the car that would take about 18 hours. He says when you cover that kind of area, you’re bound to run through a variety of landscapes.
The Iditarod trail goes north on even years and south on odd years–spreading the adventure through different sets of villages.
The Route
“The villages use this trail as a way to get between their towns in the winter, and it’s also being used by the sled dogs for the Iditarod. The weather, the conditions, the villages, everything changes throughout the course—different cultures as you move your way through.”
It took him 23 days, 22 hours, and 10 minutes. Logar ran 18-20 hours each day stopping for 3 or four hours to sleep and maintain. He slept outside mostly. Showered twice. He would be offered meals throughout the trip but for the most part, he ate along the way. He carried about three days’ worth of food at a time, collecting it as he traveled from post offices that he sent packages to beforehand.
Doctor Ready
Logar says for the most part he enjoyed himself. But there were some stumbling blocks.
“Yes, I was unfortunate enough to have, um, pretty severe diarrhea for the last five days,” Logar recalls, laughing. “It was horrible.”
Good thing he’s a doctor, right? And what did he prescribe for himself? What’s the secret of champions that allowed him to preserve and be first to the finish line?
“I asked a guy at the house I was staying at, ‘Do you have Laffy Taffy?’ He went and bought me, gosh, a hundred dollars worth of Laffy Taffy and Bit O Honey and that’s what worked for me. I ate Laffy Taffy the whole way.”
The Prize
Well, for winning first place, Logar didn’t receive any medal or ceremony or trophy. Just love and admiration from his community and free entry into next year’s race. He says he might have to do it again. But if he does, he’ll likely race on a bike.
Iditarod Lessons
Logar says first and foremost, the race taught him a lot about management. But he says he also learned a lot about what it means to be selfish:
“I’m gone for a month and I’m thinking only about myself and some very basic needs for myself. So it’s pretty selfish. And that was hard to deal with realizing that. It’s only possible because of my wife Jody. This would not be something I could do without her giving me the go-ahead. So it’s her fault,” he says laughing.
West Virginia’s Head Start preschool program is no longer available in every county due to federal budget cuts, state officials said Tuesday.
The federally funded program helps prepare low-income children for elementary school and also provides them with meals and health care. The programs are a legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s war on poverty.
But because of automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration, 461 classroom spots were eliminated in West Virginia. There were 8,075 children enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia in the 2012 fiscal year, according to federal figures.
The cuts were put in place after Congress and the White House failed to reach agreement two years ago on a plan to cut the federal deficit. Funding for the program is provided in the form of grants to 21 local community organizations.
Traci Dalton, director of West Virginia’s Head Start Collaboration Office, told lawmakers during a legislative interim meeting that the cuts meant that the program had to be eliminated in Tucker County. Previously, all 55 West Virginia counties had Head Start programs in them.
Nationwide, more than 57,000 spots for children were eliminated. Dalton said West Virginia is better off than some other states because it offers a universal preschool program for 4-year-old children, and some of those who would have gone to Head Start likely enrolled in that program.
“We’re glad they’re being served somewhere, however there are services that are being lost to those families,” she said. “The health component, I mean, we have staff that are driving children to the dentist, taking families and making sure they’re getting their immunizations. … Those are the types of services that are being lost.”
But Dalton also warned that another round of sequestration would likely mean more cuts. So far, 80 Head Start positions have been eliminated, she said.
West Virginia Head Start programs receive about $55 million, down from $58 million before sequestration.
Dalton did not have an estimate on exactly how many children would be impacted or in which counties if sequestration continues. She said the average cost for each child enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia is about $7,200.
Dalton encouraged lawmakers to contact the state’s congressional delegation to get funding restored.
