“Helen Graves Selected as Monroe County Belle-2014″
The Monroe County Community Educational Outreach Service selected and sponsored Helen Campbell Graves as the 2014 West Virginia Folk Festival Belle from Monroe County. Helen is the daughter of the late Clayborne and Virginia Campbell. She grew up on a farm in Monroe County. Her parents were the first in their families to earn a college degree. Her father taught Vocational Agriculture for over thirty years and her mother was the Home Demonstration Agent in Monroe County during the thirties and the forties.
Helen is a graduate of Union High School in the class of 1960. She earned degrees in Textiles and Clothing from Berea College and the University of Wisconsin and taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Maine. She served as an Extension Agent for West Virginia University for twenty-five years, working mostly with 4-H Youth Development, Families and Health, and Tourism. She was an agent in Monroe and Greenbrier Counties.
Helen is a member of the Bluegrass Ruritan, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Monroe County Historical Society, the Monroe County 4-H Foundation and the Greenbrier Episcopal School. She enjoys traveling and learning about other cultures. She has visited all 50 US States and 25 foreign states and countries. Helen is an avid reader and enjoys dabbling in the fiber arts.
Helen lives in Sinks Grove with her husband, Rod, and enjoys having her son Birch, his wife Gretchen and two grandchildren living across the ridge.
Dressed in her Belle costume, Helen rode in the Farmers Day Parade in Union. She represented Monroe County at the WV State Folk Festival at Glenville State College in June. She shares that her mother also represented Monroe County as a Belle in 1997. The ladies that are chosen not only serve their families, churches and communities well over the years, but each one has a special success story which exemplifies the pioneer spirit.
Submitted from: The Monroe Watchman