Golden Horseshoe winners knighted virtually

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 your own.

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 Mary Lou Retton.

Bill Withers. Can’t forget Bill Withers.

And (bless his far-out soul) John Denver, even if “Country Roads” only grazes a sliver of Eastern Panhandle while failing the Mountain State Geography-Lyrics Test at the same time.

No matter.

He got West Virginia on Top 40 Radio and now people sing it in Munch during Oktoberfest, so that’s what counts.

The West Virginia Department of Education was singing to some of the state’s brightest stars in the Universe of Almost Heaven last week.

In the midst of the pandemic and the shuttering of schools in all 55 counties, 223 students were knighted.

Distance-knighted, that is.

They were ushered into the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, the state’s highest academic honor for knowledge of Mountain State history and culture.

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.

Once you’re a Knight, State Schools Superintendent W. Clayton Burch said, you’re one for the rest of your days.

“I know they will serve as incredible ambassadors to the Mountain State,” he said.

Mon County’s newly knighted are: Lauren Blosser, Thalia Krissoff and Paige Tuttle, of South Middle School; Dominick Costello, August Owen and Sawyer Rudy, of St. Francis Central; and Saivenkat Somisetty, of Mountaineer Middle.

Bringing the Golden Horseshoe to Preston County are: Joyjada Show, of Bruceton School; and Jesse Desantis, Carson Stone and Jackson Turner, all of West Preston.

Angel Conley, who teaches West Virginia History at South Middle and regularly turns out Golden Horseshoe Knights and tournament champions said earlier what the state superintendent said last week.

She’s been watching her students become ambassadors of a certain 35th state with the funky, squiggley 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 musket, 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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