Say you’re a West Virginian — born, bred and everything.
Say you moved here for college and never left, thus claiming (and not unjustly) Wild, Wonderful as yours, too.
Say you’re always ready, at the drop of your WVU ball cap, to summon the pastoral pantheon of pop culture icons running these hillbilly thoroughfares.
You know: Your pepperoni rolls and your ramps.
Your Mothman and your Mary Lou Retton.
Bill Withers. Can’t forget Bill Withers.
And the eternally far-out John Denver, even if that tune he’s known for only grazes a sliver of Eastern Panhandle while failing the Mountain State Geography-Lyrics Test at the same time.
No matter.
The West Virginia Department of Education was giving academic accolades to a stellar group of middle school students who do know their Mountain State history, geography and everything else.
More than 200 such students, in fact, from public schools in all 55 counties — plus charter schools and the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind.
They were ushered into the Knights and Ladies of the Golden Horseshoe, the state’s highest academic honor for knowledge of Mountain State history and culture, as demonstrated by young students.
Ceremonies will be June 13 at the West Virginia Culture Center in Charleston.
The Golden Horseshoe test, which many say is harder to pass than a coal truck on a two-lane, delves deep into history, economics and politics, besides the fun stuff.
Mon County’s honorees: Maxwell Abildso, Tyler Kelly and William Tapia, all of South Middle School; and Shelby Basden, Lucille Dahle, Lorelei Namsupak and Pranav Sure, who all attend Suncrest Middle.
Bringing the Golden Horseshoe to Preston County are: Richard Albright, of Aurora School; Nicholas Bernatowicz, of Central Preston Middle; and Ty Jenkins and Haylie Ternum, both of West Preston.
Angel Conley, who teaches West Virginia History at South Middle, has been watching her students become ambassadors of a certain 35th state with the funky, squiggly borders, and the only one borne of the Civil War, for a while now.
“This isn’t ‘boring’ history,” she said.
“This is the cool stuff that stays with them and makes them proud to be from here.”
She’s from the Eastern Panhandle, the place John Denver sang he belonged.
Which, for you non-Knights, is also the home of the Pringles (not the potato crisps).
You know: John and Samuel Pringle.
Brothers, they were, and battle-weary soldiers, too.
So weary, in fact, that they deserted their muskets and arrow-riddled home front during the French and Indian War in 1761.
Their flight eventually took them to the area that is now Buckhannon and Upshur County — where they cashed in their chips and hid in plain sight for several years.
In the boughs of a hollowed-out tree.
Want to know more? There are 223 authorities on the subject who can talk all Knight about it.
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