The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Center to install solar panels




Go to our Facebook page for announcements and pictures posted after each event, www.facebook.com/ pages/Hemphill-Community Center, www.facebook.com/Hemphillblacksheep. Check out our two brand new websites: www.hemphillcenter.org and www.blacksheepbrickoven.org.

The Digging Up Roots Ancestry Forum began meeting on Thursday, March 21 from 6:30 to 8 p.m.. Although there was a UK game that evening it was a great success. Participants are invited to bring a laptop or tablet, and paper and pen. This will be a free bimonthly workshop offered courtesy of Jo Ann Hall Osborne. For more information, call (606)855-4463. Many thanks, Jo, for sharing your skills and fostering family and community pride!!!

We have converted Friday Nite Pickin’ to a supper club environment where folks can come and enjoy music while eating their evening meal from the fabulous Black Sheep Menu. We will have a featured local singer/songwriter every Friday. This week Mitchella Phipps will be featured. She does a good mix of originals and cover tunes.

We are enjoying the fresh new laid-back format of Friday Nite Pickin’. Dancing and singing along are encouraged. No cover charge. Tips to musicians are encouraged. We hope you will support our efforts and support our local musicians doing live music!!! Come join us!!!

Solar is coming to Hemphill! We are getting geared up to get solar panels atop our building. It’s hard to believe the grounds housing the Letcher County Coal Miner’s Monument, amidst a coal camp community, could achieve such a thing. We did a little homework months back to ask coal miners what they thought of the idea.

Without fail they all echoed the same thing. They all thought we needed to move ahead with it. They thought with the closing of the Big Sandy Power Plant and the rate increases and riders on the AEP bills, that we had to search out new ways of doing things. Without fail they all told us they thought solar was a great idea. So all these months later it looks like it is about to happen. We want the miners to know how much we appreciate their contributions to our efforts all these years. The benevolence of the miners has helped us every step of the way. We love coal and hope and pray for a resurgence of technology that will put every miner back to work. We will always support our working people. That is who we are!

That being said…it takes a lot of bread products and pizza to pay $1250 per month power bills. So we are happy for the knowledge that the county is issuing a 20-year lease to Hemphill Community Center, which will allow us to obtain a loan from the Mountain Association for Economic Development for the rack of solar panels. Thanks to Judge Terry Adams, the Fiscal Court, and County Attorney Jamie Hatton.

The panels, we are told, will produce 104 percent of our power needs. We are about to launch a fundraising effort to raise the down payment of $15,000 and will finance the balance of the required $49,000 and some change needed. Channel us some positive energy as we reach higher to make this social enterprise bakery a success and employ more folks needing a job. We can use the energy savings on wages and maybe then some of the older volunteers (like me) can stop working so doggone hard. Lol.

You have an open invitation to come and hang out with us at the Center when you can. We have Wi-Fi now so kids and adults are better satisfied not being cut off from their electronic devices. We also have a playground and a walking track so bring the whole family for a visit.

It’s a hate free zone and you are invited!! Come and linger among friends!!!

Weekly Quote: You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. -Maya Angelou

Schedule of Events:

March 27: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m.

March 28: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m.

March 29: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Friday Nite Pickin’ Supper Club 7 p.m. No outside food please!

April 3: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m. & Digging Up Roots Ancestry Forum opening night. 6:30-8 p.m.

April 4: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Friday Nite Pickin’ Supper Club 7 p.m. No outside food please!

April 5: Senior fellowship 10 a.m. & John Ng’s Four Seasons Martial Arts 5:30 p.m.

April 10: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m.

April 11: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7:00-8:30 p.m.

April 12: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Friday Nite Pickin’ Supper Club 7 p.m. No outside food please!

April 13: Breakfast with the Easter Bunny. 8–10:30 a.m. Bring your own camera. Easter Egg Hunt at 11 a.m.

April 15: Senior fellowship 10 a.m. & John Ng’s Four Seasons Martial Arts 5:30 p.m.

April 16: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m.

April 17: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Open Mic 7-8:30 p.m.

April 18: Bakery open 4:30-9 p.m. & Friday Nite Pickin’ Supper Club 7 p.m. No outside food please!

Friday Nite Pickin’: Open mic at intermission. Family friendly environment.

Inclement weather policy: Watch for cancellations on Facebook two hours before scheduled events.

A merry heart makes a good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

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