This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the July 18, 2013 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            Magoffin County had a terrific 4^th of July celebration!!  There was something for everyone scheduled from Watermelon Socials to family reunions to fireworks.  We all celebrated our country’s birthday and had a very enjoyable time.  The parade on Saturday was a wonderful success.  E. J. Rudd and I got in on that one!  I got the golf cart out and my daughter Theresa Dotson decorated it for the occasion and made us some posters to use to let everyone know of the historical society’s Labor Day celebration of the Rudd family heritage for Founders Days 2013.  E. J. and I wore our brand new Rudd tee-shirts that Lisa Daniels Preston got for us.  We really enjoyed all the waves, call-outs and hugs along the parade route!  I’m thinking E. J. got more hugs than I did but that was only because I was driving the cart (SMILE).

We had a good number of people walking in the parade who wore their Rudd souvenir hats and tee-shirts.  We want to remind everyone that our Labor Day event is a Magoffin County Homecoming and all are welcome to come help the Rudd family celebrate their heritage.

             We hear that some people missed out on the 4^th of July happenings because of the heavy rains that had been forecast.  We are thankful not to have received the flooding that was predicted for our area.  

            After the parade, I, along with Ben Gardner and company, attended the Renaissance salute to Scotty B. Patrick.  This was a fine tribute for a man who supports projects for the betterment of Magoffin County!

            We have been fortunate in having some great contributions of material to our historical society in the last few weeks.  Currently we have all the Rudd family information typed into our book manuscript and are awaiting more!  We have been notified that Donna Hamons Miller is sending her material on the Floyd County Edward “Ned” Ousley and Malissa Rudd family.  Garnett Collinsworth Amyx just today brought in the Rudd family history she has compiled. We invite you to share with us any family info and pictures you may have.

We have gotten that Summer quarterly Journal of the Magoffin County Historical Society in the mail and have a good start on the Fall Journal. 

            Some of the contributed material will go in that Fall Journal.  This includes excerpts from the big notebook of pictures and genealogy received from Ricky Gene Reed on his ancestor Sigler or Ziegler Reed.  Ricky tells us that he got his start on the family history from what we printed in the Reed family books back in 1990.  What a nice feeling of satisfaction that gave us as one of our aims is to provide material that researchers can use to further enhance knowledge of their own family history. 

            A series of articles will be done in future Journals with pictures brought in to us by Miles Hoskins.  It is very interesting see these pictures and to research their families.  Some of these are connected to the Gullett family.

            Scott Frasure came in this week with a group of pictures he had obtained on the early Frasure, Bays, Miller, Spradlin and Eldridge families. He told Dorothy he appreciated the help he had received from us and wanted to share what he had acquired with us.

            Along those same lines, Nori Rust Thornton has shared some pictures of the Alsept family who lived in the Cow Creek area of our county with us and has told us that a computer disk is coming that will contain her additional information on the Alsepts and related families.  She also mentioned her appreciation of help she had received from our printed works and assistance here at our library.

            Marla McFarland sent us some photos of the 2012 Magoffin Days held in Fairborn, OH.  She has announced that my sister Ida Jane Preston Conley is the contact person for the 2013 reunion which will be held this year on Saturday, October 12 at the Bath Township Community Building in Fairborn, OH.  I used to greatly enjoy attending the Ohio based Magoffin Days. We would get to see a lot of our old friends and make friends with new acquaintances whose roots are in Magoffin County.

            Another part of that Fall Journal I am looking forward to is sharing with you some pictures of our June historical society meeting at the home of John and Deanna Holbrook.  That trip will be a treasured memory of the year 2013 for all of us who were fortunate in getting to be in attendance.

            Our library has had a goodly number of visitors, emails, telephone calls, etc. on the availability of various books that we have “in progress”.  Some of these we have made some progress on and hope that we will be able to print in the coming months.  We look on these inquiries as encouragement to continue the work we are attempting to do. Remember that our volunteer work force is small to begin with and some of us are not as able to contribute a great deal of help as in days gone by.

            This coming Sunday the historical society will meet at 2 p.m. here at our library. We will need to do a lot of planning for Founders Days so come out and visit us and share your ideas.