Wednesday, April 18, 2012
EXTRA ONLINE EDITION THE PRINCESS TEA PARTY RETURNS THIS SATURDAY. PAGE 5
School Board considers hiring truancy officer
Buffalo marks 175th anniversary with horse parade By David Payne Sr.
By David Payne Sr.
davidpayne@theputnamstandard.com
davidpayne@theputnamstandard.com
WINFIELD -- Putnam County Schools may soon be hiring a truancy officer with legal authority to keep students on the right track. Twenty Ninth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Phillip Stowers told the Putnam County Board of Education at Tuesday's meeting that while the truancy-diversion program has been successful, a dedicated truancy officer would help the county get many of the more resistant students on the right track. The diversion program intervenes to keep truancy cases from reaching circuit court. He asked the board to consider hiring a dedicated truancy officer, who would have authority to act on behalf of the court. While the officer would be employed by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, the county would ultimately be picking up the bill for the salary, Stowers said. “What I'm talking about is funding a person who has to authority to act (on behalf of the court) in your schools. You can't hire that,” he said. Stowers said that the number of truancy cases that reach circuit court declined more than 60 percent between 2005 and 2010. This, despite the fact that the very definition of truancy changed in SEE BOARD ON PAGE 3
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BUFFALO -- It's likely that the last time there were this many horses in a parade in the town of Buffalo, automobiles hadn't been invented yet to pull the floats. The sound of horseshoes clicking on concrete filled the air as there were over 100 horses and mules present at the Buffalo All-Horse Parade Saturday - not counting those in teams pulling the 20 wagons. The event was to commemorate the town's 175th anniversary. It was the first horse parade in living memory for the community, said Melody Matthews, event organizer. “We wanted to commemorate our special anniversary and it was suggested we go back in time to what a parade would have been like at that time,” she said. People lined the streets to get a glimpse of the parade. Among them was Karen Condron of Hurricane, who brought her three-year-old grandson Andy to
A boy waves to the crowd during Buffalo’s horse parade on Saturday, April 14. Photo by David Payne Sr. watch the horses, mules and wagon teams file past. “This is certainly the first one (all horse parade) I've been to. Andy really loves it. He likes the
black horses the best,” she said. Matthews said there are no plans, at least at the moment, to hold another. “People have really enjoyed it
and they may want to see it again, but we can't say if we'll ever have one again. This was to SEE PARADE ON PAGE 3
County Commission approves levy rate increase By Jack Bailey jackbailey@theputnamstandard.com
WINFIELD – The Putnam County Commission adopted a new property tax levy rate of 13.85 percent for the 2013 fiscal year that begins July 1 at its Tuesday, April 17, meeting. The new rate represents an in-
crease of .3 percent over the current rate of 13.55 percent. Putnam County Commission President Gary Tillis said that the increase was necessary in order to essentially help the county keep the status quo. “We had a $300,000 increase in our regional jail costs,” Tillis said. “That caused us to have to re-
evaluate our levy rate.” Tillis said that the Commission took a hard look at spending for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and did not grant many of the requests for additional funds that they received from agencies and elected officials. “Elected officials did not get everything they asked for, but we
are blessed in Putnam County that we have not had the problems that other counties have faced,” Tillis said. “Other counties have had to have layoffs and we have not had to do that.” The vote to raise the levy rate was 2-1 with Commissioner SEE COMMISSION ON PAGE 3
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