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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1987)
SECTION B Friday, September 4, 1987 Blacksmith forges life on West Virginia frontier ^WAIRMONT, W.Va. (AP) — ■tt|enty years ago, Ronnie Utt was melping to forge tlie “New Frontier.” ^^Klay, he’s returned to the forge to Hielp children understand frontier B va y' s - ^Wtt, 53, a former technician at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in ^Houston, is a bespectacled musician doubles as blacksmith at Prick- i Fort State Park in Marion pojmty, W.Va. ^|Ie helps to recreate for school ^■rs the West Virginia life of the 1700s — including old Appala- ^Bin and British ballads and Irish jullkbies that have been passed down ^^Kugh the generations. ‘[it’s the first time my machinist tnd music interests have come to gether” in one job, says Utt, who ijlttiks and sings in a drawl that’s enpiniscent of country singer Willie Nielson. ‘jit’s great,” he says. “And to himk, I found it only eight miles Yoiu where I was born.” ^■'he job calls for “showing the old mq the new” to help children com- jrepend how pioneers lived, he says. ?on example, he tells his young visi- ors that chores they do at home are nuc It the same as those performed )y Frontier children — such as tak- ngput the garbage. ^He also leads sing-alongs of the ballads and Irish lullabies that some of the children’s parents still sing. Utt grew up on a farm outside Morgantown, W.Va., and the rural life fostered in him a passion for both traditional Appalachian music and tinkering with machines. “My stepmother sang the old songs,” he says. “I’d sit up and sing far into the night with her.” His father had a hand-cranked forge, which young Ronnie ran when his father made tools and farm equipment — including a tractor built from scratch. Utt joined the Air Force shortly after high school and became a ma chinist. He was stationed in central Louisiana, where he sang in a gospel group, and then Texas, where he worked in the oil Fields after leaving the service. Then Utt “went looking for greener Fields” and joined Philco — now Ford Aerospace — in 1965. He helped design and install the John son Center’s control-room consoles — “that room you see on TV with the green lights” — between 1965 and 1980, from Gemini 3 to the first Columbia space shuttle flight. But the job entailed chemically treating the circuitry and consoles to prevent corrosion. “After 13 years of spray painting and working with cnemicals, it was affecting my health,” Utt says. He developed allergies and sinus roblems. He also had a 40 percent earing loss due to the chemicals — “a scary thing for a musician,” Utt says. The chemicals, combined with the high humidity and pollution of Houston, drove him behind a desk. “But by then, the damage was done. So I moved home,” he said. His health cleared up once he re turned to West Virginia and the out doors, he says — ironic in view of his current job, since frontier black smiths usually died young because they breathed so much hot coal dust. Utt says he’s devoted to his new state government-paid job. He in sists upon dressing correctly for the part, including hand-sewn linen frontiersman britches and blouses. Utt even lives in a log cabin dating from the 1830s. It has electricity and running water, but other facets —in cluding a well-used cooking hearth — retain the frontier feeling. At the end of the day, however, when the school buses full of chil dren have departed, Utt slips out of his leather moccasins and into his work boots for the trip home. He drives to a gas station to tank up his battered car with the Pittsburgh Steelers decal on the rear window. “I’ve got to get back to the 20th century now,” he says. Hart to face questions about Rice in ‘Nightline’ appearance Sept. 8 mphNVT.R (APL— Gary Hart will face questions about lis political future and .personal life on a special one- ioui edition of ABC’s “Nightline” next week, pokesmen said Wednesday. Ip’Ifhe Sept. 8 show will be the First time Hart has igreed to answer questions since speculation erupted ast month that he might re-enter the race for the 1988 )emocratic presidential nomination. ■aura Wessner of ABC said that Hart, who dropped »ut of the race earlier this year amid questions about his elationship to Miami model Donna Rice, will be ques tioned “one-on-one” by Nightline anchorman Ted Koppel. Asked if there were any limits placed on the ques tions, Wessner said there were no conditions attached to the interview. Speculation that Hart might re-enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination was kindled last month after his former campaign manager, Bill Dixon, said it was “likely” Hart would do so. Hart quit his campaign on May 8, Five days after the Miami Herald reported he spent part of a weekend with actress-model Donna Rice. BOOK SALE Save 1/3 to 1/2 and more on these publishers close-outs and Bargain Editions! Many other titles are also available. 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