July 3, 1981 Aunt Estelle wrote

Friday  1981  Cloudy to fair  not so hot

I went for milk & eggs and cooked dinner.  Took Jennings some food.  Went to Edith's garden and got beans, then to the apple trees.  Jennings & Uncle Ray came by a minute.  We went up to Reba's a minute to see Frances  & boys.  Wendi came to stay all nite while A. T. & Janice went to A. T. 's class reunion party. 

Footnote:  Jennings is her brother who lives nearby.  Edith is her sister - she lives in Big Stone but has a garden on the farm near Estelle's house.  Uncle Ray Baker is the half-brother of her Mother, Lula Baker Reasor.   Reba is her sister-in-law and Frances is Reba's niece, but Reba raised her in Olinger, Virginia.  Frances lives in Kingsport, Tn., about 45 miles away.  Wendi is her granddaughter.   A. T. Collier went to East Stone Gap school until  fall of 1959 when he had to go to Powell Valley High School.  Big Stone and East Stone schools were merged into one.  I was in the first class to graduate from Powell Valley.  We all hated it that year - East Stone had been one of our sports rivals and to have to go to school with them, we thought it was just awful.  The East Stone kids felt the same.  As I recall, A. T. was a very bright student.  He was not in my class but I think a year or two behind me.  May have graduated with Doug in 1962.   Wendi graduated from the same school.  An interesting thing that has just happened,  they have now built a new school on the same property in Powell Valley.  It is now called Union High School and they are known as the Bears.  The county decided to close the Appalachia High school and bus all those students to Union High in Powell Valley.  The population in Appalachia has declined as the coal mining has declined and that is one reason they closed the school.  Just in the last few months, they have torn down the Powell Valley High School - 50 + years later.