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Randolph County approves donation to youth golf program

ELKINS — The Randolph County Commission unanimously approved a funding request from an area youth golf program.

Commissioners Mark Scott and Chris See each voted to approve a donation of $1,000 — to be taken out of the hotel/motel tax budget line — to the John Ballantyne Jr. Memorial Junior Golf Program held at Elks Lodge 1135.

Although no one from the organization was available to speak at Thursday’s meeting, See read from a letter submitted by program officials.

“The John Ballantyne Memorial Golf Program has started their 2018 camp with 45 kids. Last year we had 50 children in attendance. The golf organization is named in memory of a devoted Elks member by the name of John Ballantyne who was passionate about teaching kids the game of golf,” See read from the letter.

“The classes are offered to kids between the ages of six and 18. Every child is given a golf shirt with the Elks 1135 logo and the JB Jr. golf logo, a new golf club to take home and practice with as well as plastic golf balls without any charge,” he continued. “The children are taught grip, stance, swing and putting.”

On the last day, each participant receives a participation trophy and gets to celebrate with a pizza party, sponsored by Elks Lodge 1135.

See said he believes it is a quality program.

“This is something we have been helping with for quite a few years,” See said. “I think it is really good for the children to get them involved in other activities and it even helps out kids from the high school to teach them golf at an early age. I believe it’s really great, they have a lot of volunteers to help teach the kids and hopefully it helps keep them out of mischief.”

The program was started in 1991 by Joe Walker and the late John Ballantyne, who ran the program for approximately 15 years.

This annual series is free to the kids who want to participate, thanks to a nationwide effort by local groups like John Ballantyne Memorial Junior Golf/Elks and the support of a national organization called First Tee, whose mission is to bring golf instruction to the public elementary school curriculum in schools across the country.

In other business:

• Commissioners approved a proposal from West Virginia Counties Risk Pool for Randolph County’s liability insurance for fiscal year 2018-19 in the amount of $149,469 per year.

Additionally, they unanimously approved $1 million in liability coverage for workers compensation through BrickStreet Insurance in the amount of $43,207 per year.

• Commissioners unanimously approved a change order for the new 911 center in the amount of $4,379.25 to purchase new “fire-rated” doors for the facility.

The plans were to refurbish the original doors to bring them up to code; however, commissioners said the purchase of new doors was only roughly $1,000 more than the cost to refurbish. Scott added purchasing the new doors would be more effective than the labor costs associated with the refurbish project.

“Once we found out how much time it was going to take to refinish the doors versus having brand new doors, we thought this made more sense to us,” Scott said. “I think the difference was like $1,000 to do it, but it made more sense to us to have new doors rather than to put all the time and effort into refinishing the doors.”

• Commissioners unanimously approved a $750 funding request – to be taken from the hotel/motel tax budget line — for the Harman Volunteer Fire Department Fourth of July celebration that took place Wednesday.

• Commissioners unanimously approved a renewal of support contract from Global Science and Technology, Inc., for Randolph County’s computer system, in the amount of $1,380 per month.

See noted this was the third year partnering with the company, who provides all information technology support to the county. He added the amount per month is the same as it was last year.

• Commissioners unanimously approved a proposal from Pitney Bowes for the courthouse postage machines in the amount of $929 per quarter, an increase of $34 per quarter from last year.

See said the current machines have been in use for five years and Pitney Bowes would no longer provide support for the current machines.

• Commissioners unanimously approved the re-appointments of Scott Harris, Steve Johnson, James McCloud and Richard Varchetto for three-year terms on the Randolph County Ambulance Authority Council Board, effective July 1.

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