A student at the Greenbrier Valley Campus of New River Community and Technical College placed second in the non fiction writing competition of the WV Writers Inc.

Marcia Wilson-Cales of Fort Spring, a third year student working towards her Board of Regents degree with a science emphasis, submitted "What is This Thing, Thomas Jefferson?."

The story, Wilson-Cales says, is "a wild story involving early Greenbrier settler John Stuart and his discoveries while mining in Organ Cave." Some of the discoveries were sent to Jefferson and have eventually placed in the Smithsonian where they are on display today.

The daughter of Dorsey and Bonnie Wilson of Fort Spring, Wilson-Cales plans to turn this essay into a book about the various prehistoric findings in the Greenbrier Valley area and the Stuart-Jefferson interest.

A 1989 graduate of Greenbrier East High School and former student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, she will be attending a creative writing workshop at the Alleghany Echoes in Bridgeport.

July 14, 2004

Submitted by Mike Williams