The Boone County Community, Economic Development and Tourism Office’s Director Larry Lodato’s report to the Board of Directors on July 15, mentioned future projects that would help stimulate long-term vitality for Boone County.

According to his Director’s report, the year 2009 has already seen quite a bit of progress for Boone County.

Lodato noted the grand opening of the Heritage and Arts Center, a project that is designed to bring culture and the arts to the coalfields. Lodato noted that the approximated cost of that project, with the Boone County Community, Economic Development and Tourism Office as “the administrative arm of the project” was $90,000.

Another project the BCCED office has been working on is to help X-Press Cable and West Virginia American Water in their search for a new location of X-Press Cable’s Boone County operation at Mountaineer Drive, just off U.S. 119 at Danville.

X-Press Cable, headquartered in Middlesboro, Ky., purchased more than three acres and is ready to construct a building on their site and they also need to extend water to the facility.

An estimated cost of a waterline extension could run just under $200,000, according to Lodato’s report.

Lodato reported that since March, their office has been involved in several new grants, either in writing them or

administering them.

These grants include a $15,000 business incubator improvement grant; a $9,770 grant to be used for court security; a $7,894 grant for county records improvements; and a $50,000 grant for the design and engineering work for the Turtle Creek waterline extension project.

Working with the Boone County Commission, Lodato reports that the BCCED Office has completed the paperwork on the $90,000 Joe’s Creek waterline extension project and the $74,400 Courthouse Improvements Authority grant.

Lodato reported that Waterways Park was recently featured in the State Journal as one of the “55 Good Things About West Virginia.” Further development of the waterpark’s trails, soccer field and amphitheater.

Continuing with this progress, the BCCED Office will continue to work on their collection of oral histories.

The project is funded by the National Coal Heritage Area and the Bituminous Coal Heritage Foundation.

To date, both R.B. Foster, and Delores W. Cook, have been interviewed and their oral

histories chronicled and saved for future generations to learn about life in the southern West Virginia coalfields.

Their stories can be viewed at the Boone County Heritage and Arts Center, on Main Street, Madison.

Future documentaries include the musings of noted historian Robert Plants, who will be discussing the early history of Boone County, and George “Crook” Clendenen, who will discuss the construction and utilization of the Locks and Dams on the Coal River, according to Lodato’s report.