Thanks to volunteers Steve Smith, Sharon Wilson, Patience Wait, JP & Donna Burns, Debbie Royalty, Robin Huyett Thomas, Cathy Jackson, Suzin Wright, Sondra Hosey and Bob Montgomery who kept our booth fully staffed and open for the entire week.
Thanks also to the local merchants and citizens who donated merchandise and gift certificates for our silent auction: Dickinson & Wait Craft Gallery, DISH restaurant, Stan Beall, Sharon Wilson and Cathy Jackson. Thanks also to our very talented local artists who donated beautiful pieces of art for the auction: Kenneth Walker, Johanna Grodzicki and Scott Tatina.
The silent auction raised a significant sum to benefit our legal and expert witness fund and the winners were thrilled with their purchases. Thanks to all who participated!
Special thanks to "Electra" aka Clissy Funkhouser who joined us Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to perform her "Wrath Against PATH" song at the booth and walk through the fair grounds enlightening folks about PATH's destructive plans for our area. She was a big hit and crowd magnet wherever she went! Watching heads swivel and seeing the looks on the faces of the crowd as Electra did her thing was quite entertaining -- the smiles were a mile wide and the curiosity went a long way toward getting our message out. Who can resist a lady in a blinking light-up dress and hat (and, no, she's not Lady Gaga!)?
Special thanks also to our own little "mini-Mays" Samuel Smith who did his thing with the kid's games at the StopPATH booth. Watch out world -- someday you're going to buy something from this expert salesman-in-training!
Last, but certainly not least, thanks to all the fair attendees who came by the booth over the last seven days and supported us with petition signatures and donations. It was both inspiring and gratifying to hear our own message repeated back to us thousands of times from perfect strangers. Although the battle is far from over, the groundswell of public outrage at the PATH project and support for our efforts is overwhelming and demonstrates the effectiveness of a true grassroots movement. While PATH spent currently unknown thousands of dollars (to be recouped from our electric bills) hiring RL Repass to conduct phone surveys and focus groups several months ago to gauge public opinion in Jefferson County, we accomplished the exact same thing for the extremely low cost of booth rental at the fair and a week of my time (free, but not cheap!) PATH needn't waste any more of our money with additional propaganda campaigns in Jefferson County -- they are sure to be DOA -- PATH is not welcome in Jefferson County! The public is not the uneducated, easily-swayed patsys they expected. We're not anything like the stereotype PATH has labeled us with, but instead are knowledgeable, engaged and fed-up with West Virginia being used and abused for out-of-state corporate profits.
I am truly grateful and enjoyed spending time with each and every one of you this past week!