Happy New Year from Rose Hill

Hello Blog Readers,

Another year has passed by!
Oh me, oh my, how the time does fly!

There's lots of wonderful and fun local events planned for 2009, even way out here in beautiful "God's Country." Check it out on the Rose Hill website, click on Local Events, and then scroll on down. We've got events posted already for January 2009 through December 2009. I pretty much defined "local" for the Events page as Lee County and some neighbor counties: Scott County and Wise County, Virginia; Hancock County and Claiborne County, Tennessee; and Bell County and Harlan County, Kentucky.

It amazes me how many 2009 events in that overall geographic area are currently being promoted on the Internet. I didn't call any Chamber of Commerces or Visitor Centers or Tourism Organizations -- I simply did the research online.

Anyway, there's lots to do out here in 2009 in these beautiful hills of home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from the little Rose Hill, Virginia!!
Joan

from western Lee County to the White House

Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher selected artist Sue Crockett to decorate the 9th District's ornament for the 2008 White House Christmas Tree. White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian.

There's a wonderful feature story on the front of the Metro section of Kingsport Times News today. The headline is "Lee artist designs Christmas ornament for White House tree."

The article explains that artist Sue Crockett, a resident of Caylor (in western Lee County), drew upon her surroundings for inspiration in the art for the ornament.

Sue Crockett reported in the article, "I have one of the most charming views in the world, and barns are the center of most activity around here. So a barn was natural to the situation."

Sue Crockett and her sister were also invited to the White House to see it on display, where they were pleased to discover that it had been placed in a prominent, eye-level position on the tree in the White House. This photo of the ornament, as well as photos of all 395 ornaments on that tree, one from every congressional district across the nation, is presented on the Internet.

Go to www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2008/ornamentsbystate/va.html

Rose Hill Christmas Parade

Here's a few photos from today's Rose Hill Christmas Parade. You can see the tail end of the parade coming round the corner at the library, also a photo of Santa (he threw me a big handful of candy when he saw me taking his photo! yum - love those jolly ranchers and bubble gum), and I guess it's sort of a strange photo to take, but the big photo (yes, I was playing around with the photo size options) is after the parade is over, and the floats and all such are heading to the elementary school to disembark from their various floats. I like the photo cuz it shows what a cute little town this is... with the barn and the mountain in the background. Okay, next we're off to another Rose Hill Elementary basketball game today. The snow is letting up. I'll bet that game is still on for tonight.

Christmas in Rose Hill

I think half the town showed up last night for the Winterfest at Rose Hill Elementary. The event's main attraction was youngins on stage performing Christmas songs in the gym. Now THAT will pack the house in Rose Hill! Here's a photo of part of the crowd, one of a class waiting to go on stage, and then a photo from one of the preformances. This Christmas show is a wonderful tradition at Rose Hill Elementary School, an annual event. I'm certain, it's the biggest crowd gathered at one time in one place in Rose Hill than any other gathering during the year. It was alot of fun and we were certainly all well entertained.