The Wayne County News • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 7A

Leroy Hitchcockof Huntington

Leroy Hitchcock, 77 of Huntington, W.Va., passed away September 14, 2017, at his residence. He was born July 15, 1940, in Kenova, W.Va., a son of the late Roy Mitchell Hitchcock and the late Daisy Blanton Benson. He was an antique dealer. He was preced-ed in death by his wife Judy Ann Hitchcock; a grandson Steven Garrett Hitchcock; and one sister, Joyce Ann Hardan. Survivors include one son and daughter-in-law, Ricky Hitchcock (Sandra) of Lavalette; one daughter and son-in-law, Jessica Layton (David) of Kenova; a step-son Ronnie Stevens and one step-daughter, Faith Ann Stevens; 11 grandchildren, Christopher, Claudia, David, Courtney, Alyssa, Michael, John-Henry, Victoria and Vincent and Kierra and Avonte’ Tanner; one great-grandchild, Brooklyn Nicole Hitchcock; great-grandchild Brooklynn Nicole Hitchcock; and one brother and sister-in-law, James Edward (Harriet) Hitchcock.There will be no public services. Online condolences may be made to the family at www.regerfh.com.

Tennessee Fryeof Wayne

Tennessee Frye, 77, of Wayne, W.Va., passed away at home on Sunday, September 24, 2017. She was born November 7, 1939, at East Lynn, W.Va., a daughter of the late William and Haney Adkins. Her husband, Samuel H. Frye, also preced-ed her in death, along with five brothers Homer, Howard, Norman, Frank and Larry; seven sisters, Ester, Kathleen, Lorain, Hester, Betty, Mary and Justina; and grandchildren Jimmie Crabtree Jr. and Amy Elizabeth Clay. Survivors include two daughters, Veronica Combs and Theresa A. Crabtree, both of Wayne; four granddaughters, Tracy Lorene Clay of Miller, Ohio, Kayla Lyndsey Clay of Lavalette, W.Va., Samantha Jo Crabtree of Fort Gay, W.Va., and Alison Leslie Wetzel of Glendale, Mont.; five great-grandchildren, Timothy Wade Fry, Diamond Madison Dingess, Lillian Jewel Hammonds, Daryl Alan Hammonds and Nichalous Payton Stephens. Funeral services were 2 p.m. Monday, September 25, 2017, at Johnson Tiller Funeral Home. Burial followed at Community Memorial Gardens.

Mildred V. Rayof Wayne

Mildred V. Ray, 93 of Wayne, passed away Friday, September 22, 2017 at Wayne Nursing and Rehabilitation. Funeral services were 1 p.m. Wednesday, September 27 at the Reger Funeral Chapel by Pastor Randal Robertson. Burial followed in Hillcrest Cemetery, Kenvoa. Mildred was born October 9, 192, in Lincoln County, W.Va., a daughter of the late Gilbert and Catherine Porter Moore. She was a homemaker, a mem-ber of Locust Grove Baptist Church and was preceded in death by her husband Edward Masel Ray. Those that survive her include one son, David Allen (Mary Ellen) Ray of Wayne; one daughter, Sandy (Jonathan) Fowler of Charleston, W.Va.; seven grandchildren, Jeanette (Kevin) Mills, Jacob (Julie) Ray, Miranda (Christopher) Klingler, Melissa (T.D.) Higginbotham, Sarah (Bruce) Mullins, Katie Ellen Ray and Samuel David Ray. In addition, she is survived by 12 great-grandchildren, Quentin Mills, Hannah Ray, Callie Mills, Gabriel Mullins, Wesley Klingler, Austin Higginbotham, Ian Klingler, Rose Mullins, Teagan Klingler, Devin Higginbotham, Will Mullins, Hunter Ray; and one sister ,Evelyn Reynolds of Huntington, as well as multiple nieces and nephews. Mildred was a loving and generous, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and sister who will be greatly missed. Online condolences may be made to the family at www.regerfh.com.

Obituaries

Lesley Rouschelle Baisdenof Ceredo

Lesley Rouschelle Baisden, 30, of Ceredo. WV, passed away Monday, September 25, 2017, in St. Mary’s Medical Center. She was born March 31, 1987 in Lynchburg, VA a daughter of Angela Rouschelle Slone Walker of Charleston, WV and Leslie Thurmond Baisden of Huntington. A brother, Christopher Baisden, preceded her in death. She was a CNA. In addition to her mother, survivors include: her children, Mark Anthony Jones and Jersey Micah Jones, both of Logan County, WV; a brother, Frank Slone and fiancée Emily Thacker of Proctorville, OH; an aunt, Glenna Hurt: cous-ins that were like sisters and brothers, Amber Brescoach, Robby Brescoach and Donna Baisden. Arrangements are incomplete at Chapman’s Mortuary, Huntington. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the funeral home to help with expenses. www.chapmans-mortuary.com

Sharon Kay Kelley of Huntington Sharon Kay Kelley, 74 of Huntington, W.Va. passed away

Saturday, September 23, 2017 at the Emogene Dolin Jones Hospice House. There will be no public services. She was born November 10, 1942 in Cabell County West Virginia, a daughter of the late William and Alene Hall Sowards. She was a customer service representative for G.C. Services Call Center and a member of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church. Sharon is survived by her hus-band Willis Kelley, one son Wayne (Diann) Kelley, one daughter Tina (Sam) Hott , three grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, two brothers and one sister. Her burial will take place in Woodmere Memorial Park. Online condolences may be made to the family at www.regerfh.com.

a few years. When he gets out, he’s got even less options than before, so it’s hardly a deterrent. What else is he going to do?”

“Instead, you haul some pharma executive out of his house in Westchester in front of his kids and neighbors, the neighbors will take note. Behavior will change. Enforcement as a deterrent in that case would work,” said Bourdain.

Seeing the problems southern West Virginia is facing firsthand, Bourdain couldn’t help but notice a similarity to communities in the city. “The inner city communities, largely black, and how people have been treated here over the last 20 or 30 years are so very, very similar. Underserved schools, all of the social problems like neglect and scorn, higher levels of incarceration, higher levels of diabetes, all of that.”

Here, in this very different place, Anthony Bourdain immediately recognized these problems. “They’re big city problems, too. Anyone who is looking down on West Virginia better check their own community because these problems are in no way unique to West Virginia.”

Shining through the problems though, Bourdain claimed he was struck by how every meal begins with grace. “That everyone I met has been kind, welcoming, hospitable, whether I’m in a bar where everyone is half drunk, in a coal mine, in someone’s home, at a football game. People are, as they say, ‘as advertised.’” said Bourdain. “They are genuinely hospitable, warm, straight-talkers with a dry sense of humor, and I feel a kinship to that.”

Describing his own life as basically dunking french fries for 30 years and living paycheck to paycheck until he was 44 years old, Bourdain knows what blue collar work is like. “I know what it’s like to struggle with an opioid addiction. That was my life, too, for a lot of years.”

Bourdain described walking through Welch and its empty storefronts where thriving busi-nesses once were not as making him feel pity, but anger. “This is America, how’d that happen?” But looming over Welch is what McDowell county cannot be separated from. Its beauty, something Bourdain assures is very special.

“There aren’t a lot of places this beautiful left in the world and that’s something of incredible

value. The question is will West Virginians be able to enjoy this beauty in 20 or 30 years?”

Other places to be featured in the episode are picking up because of tourism and new arrivals said Bourdain. “That’s great, but I’d like to see a world where the people that have been sticking it out all along and putting in their time enjoy the fruits of all that work and pride. We, the rest of the country, take so much out of this state and always have. The people are so nice here; it’s so beautiful.”

Understanding the community’s growing dis-trust with the media and other people flooding in to the area after the election, Bourdain wonders about his own impact on the area.

“I come here and I make it look like the most beautiful place on Earth. The happiest, most awe-some place on Earth that every sane person should want to come to. Am I doing good? What hap-pens if people start showing up? Is more tourism good? Are wealthy techies with start-ups looking for vacation homes in the hills really good for a place? It changes things when you say good things about a place and find something beautiful.”

Bourdain continued, “That’s not what they tell you in the movies and on TV. It doesn’t seem to be in anybody’s interest outside of the state to portray West Virginia as it is. The coverage has been igno-rant, condescending, and hateful.”

He even brought up his recent posts on Twitter about the area, and some of the negative respons-es on the social media platform. “I say I’m here and that I’m having an amazing time and I get a bunch of idiots from my side of the isle who have just kind of written off the place as a bunch of hillbillies down there. These same jokes you’ve been putting up with for 100 years. That makes me angry.”

Bourdain seemed moved as he summed up his experience here. “People here know what they’ve got. It’s a rare and beautiful thing. I’ve never been in a room with six or seven people who traveled so little and were not particularly interested in going any place.”

Their description of McDowell county? “Heaven is here. It’s got its problems, big prob-lems even,” said Bourdain. “but I’m in the best place on Earth.”

the cost of Bond Financing. However, $130 million dollars collected every 4 months from the addition-al taxes is not what I call trickle in money.

The tax payers can’t carry that type of burden to be taxed $3.2 billion dollars and receive $1.6 billion dollars in road and bridge improvements. Being a capitalist country, that’s the reality of what it cost to do business and it goes up each year. Therefore, should this amendment be passed by voters, future tax increases will have to be done to assure funding to pay on each Bonds princi-pal and interest, just based on inflation. Senate Joint Resolution 6, Road To Prosperity states, “When a bond issue as aforesaid is authorized, the Legislature shall at that same time provide for the collection of an annual state tax which shall be in a sufficient amount to the pay interest on such bonds and the principal thereof …”. (underlining was applied for emphasis)

West Virginian’s should give great pause, whether our State Legislative Delegates are rep-resenting the common people of the State of West Virginia or those waiting to buy the bonds. Once the Roads To Prosperity becomes an Amendment to our Constitution, it will not be subject to voters. In essence, a vote “yes” by the tax payer is putting your hand in the lion’s mouth.

The Roads To Prosperity Amendment brings into question how naïve do our politicians believe the people of West Virginia are. In Charleston,

W.Va. Gov. Justice released a public statement, “The Road Bond Referendum is not going to raise your taxes at all-ZERO”. Taxes were raised three months ago, July 2017. Playing with words is a politician sword. Don’t pretend what is not said won’t hurt people. Marty Gearheart, Chairman, House Roads and Transportation Committee, said, “I just do not believe that we don’t need to go into debt on that level. I really think we put the cart before the horse by passing the tax prior to the bond being considered.” Also, Delegate Tony Paynter, Wyoming County, said, “the state failed to spend $158 million in highway funds two years ago and $74 million last year. They shouldn’t throw more money at an inefficient bureaucracy and need some accountability on how the state’s money is spent”.

Thankfully the good news is the increased taxes and fees’ collected since July 2017 are already at work on additional projects improving Giles Mill Road, Harlan Springs Road in Berkeley County and other additional projects in other counties are being scheduled, creating jobs, putting money in people’s pockets, spending in local stores, busi-nesses hiring, immediate construction jobs and improved infrastructure. Is there a need for the Road To Prosperity Amendment?

Curtis PerryWayne County resident

Not my fault, he apparently thought. But of course, it was — partly. Bush and Obama had seri-ous policy shops that worked closely with their parties’ leaders on both process and policy. Trump doesn’t. Bush and Obama and their policy shops were knowledgeable about the contents of major proposals and bills. Trump isn’t.

That gives him plenty of room to maneuver. And it undercuts and perhaps completely elimi-nates the leverage of the members of the House Freedom Caucus whose hostility to Ryan prevent-ed him from getting a 218-vote House majority out of his 241-member caucus.

Now Trump and Pelosi have such leverage, as it’s clear that withholding Freedom Caucus votes can mean policy victories for the left. Caucus head Mark Meadows inferentially acknowledged as much when he promised that his group would support the Graham-Cassidy health care bill if it were to pass the Senate.

Lack of alignment between a president and his congressional party may be unfamiliar, but it’s certainly not new. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal measures passed in crisis years when his party had big majorities, but later he was repeatedly frustrated by isolationist Western and conservative Southern Democrats.

Harry Truman, after his surprise 1948 victory, wasn’t able to get his liberal policies through a Democratic Congress. Dwight Eisenhower, at loggerheads with conservative Republicans, was not displeased when they lost their thin majorities in 1954.

By 1963, political scientist and FDR biogra-pher James MacGregor Burns was writing “The

Deadlock of Democracy: Four-Party Politics in America.” Like many such works, it accurately described the recent past, but it did not fore-see how Lyndon Johnson would push his Great Society through a Democratic Congress in 1965.

Over the next 30 years, presidents and their con-gressional parties wandered into and out of align-ment with each other. Many of Richard Nixon’s toughest Watergate critics were Republicans. Gerald Ford’s old congressional colleagues sus-tained his vetoes, but not by much. House Speaker Tip O’Neill was openly contemptuous of Jimmy Carter’s closest aides.

Ronald Reagan got a bipartisan majority for his tax cuts in 1981, but Bob Dole pushed back with smaller tax increases in 1982. George H.W. Bush lost half his congressional party when he broke his read-my-lips-no-new-taxes vow in 1990. Bill Clinton worked with Democratic majorities in 1993, but they couldn’t pass Hillarycare in 1994.

In that perspective, the recent two decades of close presidential/congressional alignment looks more like the exception than the rule. The Framers purposefully established something less like an efficient government and more like an arena of conflict. Presidents and members of Congress are elected at different intervals by different constit-uencies.

The dealignment of Trump and congressio-nal Republicans may be unnerving, but it’s not abnormal.

Michael Barone is a syndicated columnist. To learn more about him, go to the website at www.creators.com.

Norman Howard Thompsonof Genoa

Norman Howard Thompson, 60, of Genoa, W.Va., died Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at St. Mary’s Medical Center. Funeral services were 11 a.m. Tuesday, September 26, 2017, at New Beginnings Church in Genoa, W.Va. Burial followed at Norman Thompson Cemetery on Joel’s Branch. He was born February 12, 1957, in Williamson, W.Va., a son of Norma Gill Thompson of Huntington, W.Va., and the late Glen Howard Thompson. Norman previously worked on his own land and lived as he wanted. He was very much loved by his family. Also preceding him in death were his grandparents Clyde Howard Gill and Zell Opal Murphy Gill, along with Henry and Bell Farley Thompson; and an uncle Claude “Tom” Gill. Additional survivors include two daughters, Tara Starkweather (Michael) of Fort Gay, W.Va., and Gina Adkins (Darius) of Fort Gay, W.Va.; a son, Glen Douglas Thompson (Keisha Ferguson) of Genoa, W.Va.; two sisters, Glenna Thompson Artrip (Larry) of Lavalette, W.Va., and April Thompson Schmuker of Genoa, W.Va.; the mother of his children, Geneva Thompson; two grandchildren, Emily Perry and Logan Starkweather; and a special cousin and friend, Steve Thompson. Morris Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

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