10 The Mountain Messenger, Tuesday, March 6, 1990
Leslie Price Shaver
A neighbor who use to live in
back of us, Mrs Estelle Pierrot,
hated children and unruly plants•
She was a tiny woman who wore
rust-colored polyester pantsuits and
had thin gray hair. She must have
been in her fifties when I first met
her. Her idea of the word "garden-
rag" was contained in the word
"tidy." She didn't plant, she pruned.
She didn't cultivate, she cleared.
Shrubs, trees, bushes, and flower-
beds disappeared weekly after she
moved in. She installed a burglar
alarm and lock bolts on all the doors
and kept the venetian blinds pulled
shut all day. Obsessively, she
picked up any loose gravel in the
driveway. The outside of her house
was ferociously clean. Not a stray
dried leaf skittered across her yard.
The lawn she kept in the style of
crewcut, never allowing it higher
than an inch before she got the re-
tarded man down bhe street to now it
for a $1.75.
Before Mrs Pierrot moved in, my
three sons had always cut through
her yard on their way down town,
but she wasn't about to allow them
tollfree passage. She negotiated a
deal with them: They could use her
property as a shortcut provided they
stayed only on the driveway and
took her garbage cans out to the
street curb on Thursday mornings.
When the first trash day arrived, the
boys forgot. Mrs Pierrot's mercy,
however, didn't include second
chances. She declared her yard off
limits.
So naturally the next n~ght they
stationed a guerilla camp on our
back deck. It offered the perfect
angle to egg the back brick wall of
her house and chimney. My sons
were not experience enough yet
with terrorism either to predict the
adhesive qualities of albumen to
They were "off and spelling"
when 36 students in grades four
through eight competed in the 1990
Monroe County Spelling Bee. This
tenth annual event tool place at Un-
ion Elementary, February 20. All
public elementary and junior high
schools were represented: Gap Mills
School, Greenville School, Peter-
stown Elementary and Peterstown
Junior High.
After three hours of competition
between grades and individuals, two
students emerged, one to lay claim
to the winning position and one to
me runner-up position. The winner
was a sixth grade student from Pe-
cerstown Elementary, Morgan
Nowlin. Morgan drew to a ciose the
eighth and final round when she
spelled correctly the word "ordi-
nance, "' which means "an authorita-
tive decree or direction."
Runner-up in the contest was
Joyce Weikle. She is an eighth
grade student from Greenville
Schools. The menacing word for her
was "craftsman," which means "a
workman who practices a trade,"
Both Morgan Joyce will have
another chance to I ove themselves
in the war of the spelling words
when they go to Charleston April 7
[o compete in the stat~wide spelling
bee sponsored by thee Charleston
Daily Mail and the Charleston Re-
gional Chamber of Commerce and
Development. It is hoped that
Monroe County will produce a win-
ner or runner-up who will then par-
tic=pate ~:', tha 1.990 National Spelling
Bee scheduled for May 27 - June 2
in Washington, D C.
Other finalists, m grades 4
through 8, participating in the
countywide bee were; Jo Ann
Cathcart, Kristi Honaker, Steven
Dowdy and Kim Hefner of Gap Mills
School: Carrie Wilson and Rachel
Ccmer of Greenville School; and
Heather Vance and Lori Waaker of
Union Elementary,
Kelly Ford, former administrator
from Greenbrier County Schools,
served as pronouncer of the bee.
Serving as judges were; Harry
Moh/er, Hester Noble and June
Sprouse. Lois Fullen taped the bee.
Susan Cobb tallied the rounds.
Frank Upton, principal of Union Ele-
mentary, served as nest. Awards
and presentation s were made by
school board members, Tommy
Hess and Sharon Harris.
The Monroe County Board of
Education Office would like to recog-
raze and thank all the students who
participated as well as the spelling
bee coordinator for each school.
The coordinators were; Susan
Cobb, Gap Mills School; Libby Jen-
nings Donna. Greenville School,
Dorothy Fields, Peterstown Elemen-
tary; J Jackson, Peterstown Junior
High; and Pare, Union Elementary.
A final word of thanks is to be
extended to the Monroe County
brick or to feel their secret position
of attack exposed. At midnight on
the deck they felt safe from the dis-
approving eyes of their parents as
well as Mrs. Pierrot.
While MIs Pierrot had no/ actu-
ally witnessed my sons' villainy,
when she came out to sweep the
driveway the next morning, she
spotted the sticky yellow residue
immediately. She grabbed the top of
the broom handle and flattened the
bristles against the asphalt. She
was so angry, she trembled• When
she screwed her head up in the di-
rection of our house, and shook the
broom in the air, I knew we were in
for it.
I gave my boys the scrub brush
my husband used to clean the out-
door barbeque grill and poured a
gallon bucket full of ammonia and
water. It was alt the armor I had to
give them against Mrs Pierrot's
wrath.
She stood in back of them watch-
ing every back and forth arm motion
of the scrub brush, continually point-
ing to spots they missed. I watched
from the deck praying the clouds
would hold off the sun long enough
to insure the boys a better chance
against dried egg yolk. They worked
for about two and a half hours, a far
more sustained effort than I had
ever gotten out of them. They wiped
the siate clean, or so | thoug ht.
Mrs Pierrot obviously did not
have the vantage point I did to ob-
serve a neighbor's habits. Nor did
she know I rose as early as she in
the mormng to drink my coffee on
the deck• The next morning while
the light was still dark gray I
watched her take her revenge. She
was fast at work hacksawing my
pink dogwood. Some of the
branches grew over our boundary
lines into her yard, too close for Mrs
Pierrot's comfort•
For Us
Education Association and the
Monroe County Reading Council for
the fully funded financial support of
the spelling bee.
John W Lewis and Ann MeClung
Tooth Grant
Goes To West
John W Lewis, science teacher at
Greenbrier West High School, was
awarded a Dental Health mini-grant
for the school year 1989-1990. He
was one of 35 recipients in West Vir-
ginia. The mini-grant are sponsored
by the Auxiliary to the West Virginia
Dental Association and the West
Virginia Dental Association. This is
the first year for the program.
Mr Lewis will be using his award
to allow students in his Biology II
class to take bacterial counts in their
own saliva and culture those bacte-
ria. Students will also be able to pre-
pare permanent casts of their own
teeth. The students will be able to
apply their knowledge of microbiol-
ogy through this lab activity.
Each teacher awarded a mini
grant will direct a project in dental
health. 6,686 children in elementary,
junior high, vocational and high
schools will have the opportunity to
participate in a variety of projects
according to Ann McClung, project
director.
Hal III
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timely fashion.
Thank you.
Haman
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