I keep seeing in the news where there is serious consideration to close Tygart Valley High School at Mill Creek and send all those students to Elkins High School. Please consider the following and these facts carefully before this serious action is undertaken.

If this action is taken, then students from Mingo, Monterville, Valley Fork, Dry Fork of Elk and other outlying areas will have to travel 37-40 miles one way just reach a school in Elkins.

Total travel will be 76 to 80 miles daily. This travel will take in the neighborhood of 2-2½ hours daily on a school bus that has to make numerous stops.

Students from Valley Head will have to travel at least 31 miles one-way and at least a 62-mile round trip daily.

Closing this school will basically eliminate or severely handicap anybody from the Mingo, Monterville, Valley Head, Valley Fork and the Dry Branch

I hate to see other students who live in the outlying areas of Randolph County denied the same opportunities I had to participate in after-school activities such as I had. In many cases, these after-school activities are where we learn the best lessons to a successful of Elk River and other outlying areas from participating in band, school plays, basketball, football, baseball, track, and any other activities that require after school practice in order to participate.

Closing the school will make it very difficult for students to attend an event even as a spectator.

For those who are lucky enough to participate in an activity in Elkins if the school is closed, then, if there is an away game or other activity after school, then, it would be in the late hours of the next morning before that student could travel home.

I attended Tygarts Valley High School and graduated in the spring of 1972; I lived at Monterville until late in my senior year when my family moved to Valley Head.

A major blessing in my school life was when Tygarts Valley started a baseball team in the spring of 1971 and a football team in the fall of 1971.

Under good coaches, I learned what teamwork, commandry, loyalty, respect, hard work, maintaining passing grades in order to stay on the team, and discipline that has carried me through my entire work life, I also made lifelong friends.

Without the opportunity to play these two sports, I would never have attended college and graduated from West Virginia University in Morgantown. Although I wasn’t an outstanding or very good athlete, the opportunity to participate in those two sports was my ticket to a successful and fulfilling career at WVU.

I worked at WVU for 38 years and last worked as the Assistant Director of Facilities for the downtown campus before retiring.

In closing, please do not close Tygarts Valley High School for future benefit of the students.

Steve Bodkins

Independence, W.Va.