History, technology effort gets a helping hand

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Funding for the Mountain Home Center has gone national.
U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, made a visit to Rocky Gap on Friday afternoon to announce a $27,500 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Agency toward the center that will house the Bland County History Archives.
The grant will allow the county to purchase 25 laptop computers, 10 desktop computers, a network server, video cameras and audio recording equipment for use in conjunction with the place-based education facility.
“Students are the key to our future, and we must prepare them for that future by providing them with the best educational resources available,” Boucher stated in his prepared remarks. “The new equipment for the Mountain Home Center at Rocky Gap High School will further this goal by enabling students to gain experience using technology while also learning the history of our region.”
Renovations on the property being turned into the Mountain Home Center began in March. The building is located adjacent to RGHS and the Rocky Gap Community Park, where Boucher made Friday’s announcement.
Plans for the center outline the top floor as a technology hub for the history archives and the basement as a place for science labs.
The top floor is scheduled to be renovated in time for the start of the 2008-09 school year in August.
In all, the renovation is expected to cost nearly $300,000, and Boucher hinted during his speech that more federal funds to help bring the project “all the way to the goal line” may be on the way.
The Bland County School Board, the Wythe-Bland Community Foundation and many individuals and businesses have already made contributions to the project totaling more than $250,000.
Boucher called the forthcoming center and the history archives project “a model for other communities” and praised RGHS history and technology teacher John Dodson for his work on both projects.
“It was a great idea,” Boucher said during his speech. “We all owe John our thanks for bringing the concept to Rocky Gap.”
Dodson began the history archives in 1993, and in the ensuing 15 years he and his students in local history and technology classes have compiled nearly 600 stories of everyday people’s lives in Bland County.
“Now we have a rich tapestry of the history of this region documented by students,” Boucher said.
With the development of the new center, the oral history initiative will expand to students at Bland High School and the facility will also be available for community use during certain yet-to-be-determined time periods.
Boucher and the other speakers at Friday’s event emphasized the originality of the history archives project in that it trains students to use technology, while at the same time educating them about their local community.
Travis Jackson, area director of the Rural Development Agency, said he was struck by the “sense of place” the archives create.
“This is a very unique project – so unique that it is one that every other county should mirror,” he said. “After you put [the stories] on the Web, you have opened up Bland County to the world.”
Dodson used the setting for Friday’s announcement to drive home the way rural communities must balance tradition with innovation, contrasting the soft gurgling of Laurel Creek with the roar of tractor-trailers speeding along on nearby Interstate 77.
“Technology does not have to be destructive,” he said.
Superintendent Don Hodock said he believes the county’s school system should embrace technology.
He added that in many instances the county’s schools already have the necessary equipment in place – now it’s a matter of using the technology to its fullest capabilities.
“We’re going to get this done and we’re going to have a showplace that’s going to be the envy of not only Virginia, but the nation,” Hodock said about the Mountain Home Center.
RGHS Principal Eric Workman, who is finishing up his first year as the head administrator at the school, said it didn’t take long to convince him of the benefits of the history archives.
One presentation was all it took, he said.
“I was hooked,” Workman recalled. “I really saw the importance, the educational value.”
For more information on the Mountain Home Center and to access the history archives go to http://www.bland.k12.va.us/bland/rocky/gap.html.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .