Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990 TAG: 9006290468
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Three-fourths of the county's land is taken up by the Jefferson National Forest, which gives the county a distinctly rural atmosphere.
As a rule, there is little crime or homelessness, not much concern about four-lane street extensions, and no bustle from shopping centers or other commercial developments.
Yet, there are several areas that residents regard as neighborhoods - small neighborhoods within the larger neighborhood.
New Castle, with a population of about 200, is Craig County's only incorporated town. It is probably the most urban-like neighborhood in the county, with a cluster of businesses and houses, streets, street lights, sidewalks and occasional minor parking problems. It also is the county seat and the main business center.
Other Craig County neighborhoods include Paint Bank, Maywood-Simmonsville, Upper Craig's Creek, Johns Creek, Sinking Creek and Barbours Creek.
All of these, like the county, are primarily rural, with houses far apart and few businesses. But the people in each area are bound together through common focal points, such as churches, volunteer fire departments and volunteer rescue squads.
Craig also offers countywide activities. In almost every case the groups go beyond their own neighborhoods to enter into activities that benefit the entire county.
The various organizations often work together and help each other with their favorite projects.
Paul J. Paradzinski, one of the most active community figures, said there are more than 40 volunteer groups in the county. Paradzinski is a forester with the Jefferson National Forest and is active in a number of county groups, including Lions, 4-H, Scouting and Keep Craig Beautiful.
He said that nearly every area has a volunteer fire department and rescue squad. There are church groups, extension homemakers clubs and garden clubs.
And there are countywide organizations, he said, including the Jaycees, Lions, Craig Historical Society, Keep Craig Beautiful, Craig Wildlife Association, a senior citizens group, Scout troops and packs, an anti-drug program known as CADRE, a 4-H program and various recreational and sports groups.
"And they are all run by volunteers," Paradzinski said. In many cases, volunteers are members of several groups.
The CADRE program is developing a drug-free county youth center in New Castle. The Craig Historical Society's big project is the slow restoration of the old hotel in the center of New Castle.
Each spring, Keep Craig Beautiful members sponsor a countywide trash pickup.
Homemakers clubs are sponsored by the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, which in this area operates through Virginia Tech. These groups have moved beyond their traditional roles of dealing only in crafts and cooking, an official says.
"We now deal with health problems, stress and other things that have to do with health, building businesses and family matters," said Jeanie Drummond.
Drummond is president of the Craig County Extension Homemakers Clubs, an umbrella organization for the six homemakers clubs throughout the county.
The clubs operate as neighborhood organizations, but their activities are often countywide. The six clubs are known by the names of Craig Valley, Hebron, Maywood, Oriskany, 621 and Triple-H.
While they are neighborhood organizations, Drummond said, today's homemakers clubs look toward the general betterment of the county as a whole, not only their own neighborhoods. They also work with other organizations, such as 4-H and Scouts, on cooperative projects.
Homemakers join with Lions club members to bring bloodmobile visits to Craig.
They cooperate with the county fair association in providing judges for various competitions.
They also help raise funds for some of the county's volunteer fire departments and rescue squads.
A cooperative project now developing, Drummond said, is recycling.
Homemakers also bought new Christmas lights to decorate the streets of New Castle, Drummond said, and some of the clubs have entered floats in the county's annual Christmas parade.
Members of at least one club, Drummond said, have joined in the state's Adopt-A-Highway program to keep a section of highway free of litter.
Homemakers also have helped Scout units in the county raise money to build a nature trail.
They prepare Easter and Christmas baskets for elderly shut-ins and they maintain a scholarship fund to send a county girl to 4-H camp each summer, Drummond said.
Additionally, they have adopted a patient at Catawba Hospital and each club adopts a needy family in the Christmas season.
The two garden clubs in the county, Maywood and New Castle, concern themselves with more than flowers.
The New Castle club, for example, takes Christmas to patients at Catawba Hospital.
"This is one of our longtime projects," said Delena Givens, president of the club. "We've been going over there since it was known as Catawba Sanatorium."
Another longtime project of the New Castle club, she said, is to create real flower centerpieces for the dining hall tables at Camp Easter Seal each Friday during the camping season. They are taken on Fridays, she said, for the benefit of new campers coming in.
In another project, the group arranges the community Nativity scene in New Castle each Christmas.
Every other year, the club holds a spring flower show with flowers grown by the members. On alternating years it holds a Christmas show.
During the growing season, club members plant flowers in planter boxes at the county courthouse in New Castle and put up hanging baskets along New Castle's Main Street.
One project of the Maywood club was to place a marker on Virginia 42 on a high point of Sinking Creek Mountain proclaiming that spot the "Great Eastern Divide." This was a cooperative project with the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Craig County paying for the sign.
At the spot, 2,704 feet high, water that flows down one slope eventually spills into the Atlantic Ocean, and that which goes down the opposite slope is destined for the Gulf of Mexico.
"We really had to work on this," said Geraldine Farrier, a member of the club.
Members worked through Craig's congressman and had to prove the significance of the spot.
"There was quite a lot of work to it," she said.
Another of the club's big projects, Farrier said, was to raise funds for the stone gate entrance to Ross Cemetery, near the old Maywood School. This was done about 20 years ago at a cost of $2,000.
But the club also has undertaken smaller projects, among them to sponsor a girl to Girls' State and to take Christmas cheer to nursing home residents.
Farrier said that at five rural intersections in the area, the club has placed markers that show the names of residents along the roads involved with arrows pointing in which direction they live.
Club members also sponsor a neighborhood girl to Girls' State and take gifts and other Christmas cheer to residents of a nursing home.
The club also is responsible for a community fellowship time that Farrier said is not only considerable fun for all but also is a fund-raiser for the club. It is the annual auction of crafts, many of them made by community residents.
It is the club's principal fund raising project and last year raised more than $900, a record amount.
The New Castle Lions Club, like all Lions clubs, works primarily to aid people with vision and hearing problems. But it takes on other activities.
Paradzinski, one of the group's longtime active members, said the club also is involved in Little Leagues, Scouting and the anti-drug program. It also is the sponsor of the Christmas parade in New Castle.
Members built and maintain the New Castle's Lions Park, a small park on Virginia 311 designed for recreation of children and adults.
One of the club's most recent projects, Paradzinski said, was to compile a list of emergency phone numbers, which is being distributed to people throughout the county. The list is intended as an insert into the telephone directory.
Paradzinski said that about 95 percent of the money the club raises is used for Craig projects.
"Almost all of the money we collect goes back into the community," he said.
by CNB