This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the December 8, 2011 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

          Christmas has arrived in Magoffin County!  What a treat to see Santa in the parade on a Harley!  Needless to say, this created a great deal of excitement along the parade route. 

Our Home Town Christmas event was held on Saturday, December 3^rd and was a huge success!  This was a time when our citizens, civic groups, churches, county and city governments and just everyone pitched in and made it all a time to remember for our children and people of all ages. 

          We decorated one of the trees in the Hall Community Center yard and city workers decorated the larger tree with handmade decorations from all the county school students.  The Military Support group decorated a tree in honor of our veterans, past and present. 

          We were amazed at the parade and the myriad of Christmas lights and other decorations used to decorate the vehicles and floats.  It was a pleasure to see the young people in the parade singing songs and shouting Christmas greetings as they rode and walked in the parade.  It required a lot of hard work by many people, many of whom did the work without thought of self recognition or acclaim.  We admire them all for the selfless work that made such a joyous occasion for us.

          Before the parade there was a gathering here on the grounds of the Magoffin County Historical Society.  We had a nice little program worked up for those attending. Of course, the big event was the bicycle give-away for youngsters from all the grade schools in our county.  The excitement on the winner’s faces was priceless.  Mayor Pete Shepherd took on the chore of announcing the winners.  It was quite a show to watch those youngsters run up to claim their bikes.  County Judge Dr. Hardin had planned to be here also but other matters prevented him from attending. 

          Several events were going on around our town.  Store and office windows were decorated for the season as were many lawns throughout the county. The announcements of best decorations were given by the chairpersons for each category while volunteers gave out the prizes. 

Our own volunteers Dorothy Wireman, Kay Bentley, Jessica Howard and Abby Conley helped out here by serving cider and cookies.  Jarrod Howard set up the sound system for our part of the program here at the historical society.  I helped the mayor raise the flag and everyone in the audience joined in on saying the Pledge to the Flag.  Prayer was held and welcoming remarks were given by Salyersville Mayor Pete Shepherd and myself.  Carol Jean Howard presented an inspiring Christmas Bible reading on the birth of Jesus Christ. We were happy to have music by our own Hometown Singers! 

Gifts have been bestowed upon the historical society by two people interested in helping us preserve memories of our past.  Jamie Caudill brought in an 8mm movie projector along with a couple of screens.  These go perfectly with the antique cameras given earlier by Henry Clay Patrick and his sister.

Garry Miller surprised us with a set of 25 Time-Life Civil War history books that are amazing to see!  We have currently put these in the glass cabinet that was given to us by Stanley and Virginia Gardner’s daughters Cheryl Cook and Marsha Arnett.

It is not too early to invite you to the regular meeting of our Magoffin County Historical Society.  We will meet on December 18^th at 2 p.m. here at our library. Mark the date on your calendar and we will look forward to seeing you here.

If you would like to contact us, write us at Box 222, Salyersville, KY 41465 or email at Magoffin@foothills.net.  Our building is located at 191 South Church Street here in Salyersville, next door to the Community Center and the WRLV radio station.