Published: April 04, 2008 06:33 pm         

Thumbs - Saturday, April 5, 2008

Thumbs up ... to Dr. Ed Eckley, chairman of the New River Dental Society, and to the volunteer dentists he recruited who provided free dental exams for underserved children at the Elinor Hurt Memorial Health Center. The kids who needed dental work were scheduled for appointments with those dentists, who will provide the work without charge.



Thumbs up ... to Phillip and Michael Fama, owners of Bellacino’s restaurants in Beckley and Beaver, for introducing their new gourmet food produces, Entree Gourmet, to the Home Shopping Network.



Thumbs up ... to John DeMary of Rivesville, who has built and given away 500 bluebird houses since 1980 to family, friends and hospitals.



Thumbs up ... to West Virginia University, one of three schools to receive up to $26 million in federal funds over the next two years to develop clean and efficient technologies for fossil fuels such as coal.



Thumbs up ... to yet another West Virginia attraction being featured in the national media. Greenbrier County’s Organ Cave, the second-longest commercial cave on the East coast and a site many regard as the birthplace of American paleontology, will be featured on the History Channel’s “Cities of the Underworld.”



Thumbs up ... to Mountain State University Phi Sigma Phi fraternity brothers for spending three days living in cardboard boxes outside the college to raise funds and awareness about the plight of the homeless in the Beckley area.



Thumbs up ... to West Virginia being ranked at the top of the class for its use of and access to technology in the classroom.



Thumbs up ... to the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine once again ranked in the top 50 primary care and rural medicine graduate schools across the nation by U.S. News and World Report. This marks the 10th year in a row for the medical school to be ranked in U.S. News’ “Best Graduate Schools.”