Christmas is upon us and so is the music and song. “Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat. Won’t you please put a penny in the old man’s hat? If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do. If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you”. That’s a traditional carol I remember singing in grammar school back in the day when such fun was allowed. We sang it as a round.

Boone County in West Virginia is a long way from Jefferson County. Its county seat, Madison, is further from Charles Town than is Stamford Connecticut. It also serves as a stark contrast to our county - more than twice its size but less than half the population. The median value of a home there is a little more than a third of what it is here and the percentage of its citizens living below the poverty line is nearly double.

Education is key to success and leads to a rewarding quality of life. Growing up, I attended public school in a major city. As I approached school age, my parents shopped around for a neighborhood that was “zoned” to include a “good school”. That was my generation’s version of school choice. Not all “free” public schools were equal and most people understood that “equality of opportunity”, if it really existed, didn’t guarantee equality of result.

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving holiday and that you have a lot to be thankful for. One of the things I am thankful for is that for the first time in more than 80 years, West Virginia has an opportunity for meaningful change. Voters are finally tired of West Virginia being at or near the bottom of all those lists.

Thanksgiving is upon us. Today my wife and I went out to pick up our locally raised turkey. Giving thanks for our blessings is a great reason to celebrate a holiday. My wife and I are fortunate in that we will be sharing that experience with friends and family. We hope that you will too and wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.

At their last meeting the Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee voted to remove a sitting member, Chris Anders, one of two representative on the committee from the Shepherdstown Magisterial District. While there is some question as to whether or not they had the right to do this, there’s an even more important question - was it the right thing to do? What they did was to kick out a member of the committee that had won that seat in a taxpayer funded election.