Elk River

Flatwoods is a small community in Braxton County, right in the heart of central West Virginia.

It sits in the hills near the Elk River, just off Interstate 79, a short drive from the town of Sutton, which is the county seat.

It's the kind of place where everybody knows everybody, and where the mountains stand so close they seem to lean in and listen.

West Virginia has never been shy about its monsters.

And were I him at his age, 'cause I remember being him at his age, and, and the, the best thing that happened to me in that scholastic career, other than the education I got...

And, again, a quick thank you to all of the teachers that we had growing up in Clendenin and Elkview, West Virginia, from Clendenin and Elkview, the elementary schools in play, from, uh, Clendenin Junior High and our biggest rival, Elkview Junior High, and they became our biggest allies when we all came together at Herbert Hoover High School, and lifelong friends from those communities that are so close and so close-knit along the Elk River there in Kanawha County.

Um, the lessons that I learned, and the biggest excitement I had, seventh grader making the seventh grade basketball team, eighth grader making the eighth grade team or the JV team, as we called it, and then the ninth grade team, which was the big guys, 'cause we were a junior high school, not a middle school.

So the ninth grade was the top dog of the class of the school, and then you went to high school in the 10th grade, and sophomores were the low rung.