What One Devoted Activist Can Do
By Stephen N. Reed

Political activists are a rare breed, in more ways than one.  They are rare individuals in the sense of them being unique and set apart from the average citizen, who doesn't go in for political issues, who's leading them, the principles of democracy as much as the activist.
 
         But such activists are rare in the ordinary sense of that word, too.  They are scarce, and increasingly so across West Virginia and America as people get caught up in their immediate responsibilities to their families instead of having more time for community concerns.
 
         However, every now and then, along comes a citizen activist whose passion is so different from the rest of us that he or she stands out like a bright planet among the stars
in the autumn sky.  Their fury--or simply their love for their state or country--blazes and never seems to quit.
 
         I have had the good fortune of meeting several such folks in my lifetime throughout West Virginia.  First, there were my parents, who were always involved in their church and community.  Their particular fight was trying to improve the school system in Preston County for the benefit of students like me and my friends.  I can still remember my mother calling up the local radio station's prototype of a talk radio show to give her ten cents or my father representing a citizen's group in a hearing before the State Board of Education.
 
        They showed me that you can do your part in a good cause, even have fun doing it, and then go back to your regularly scheduled life when it was done.  I admired the fact that they didn't make such activism a career--for there is certainly more to life.  But when they saw something that riled them up, they did something about it, in the best tradition of free will.  They didn't accept things as they were.  They worked to make them better, at least in those areas where they felt called to make a difference.
 
       Next was John Raese, an unlikely political activist if you believe that the wealthy are too self-absorbed to invest their time and prestige in a civic effort.  But in his early thirties, John Raese of Morgantown didn't listen to naysayers who would have held back his anger
at what the one-party system was doing to West Virginia, his home state. 
 
      So he gave all he had to give to waking people up--his money, his time, his talents. 
He didn't get to serve in the U.S. Senate or the Governor's Mansion, but he inspired a new generation of Young Republicans to continue the fight in his absence. 
 
     To this day, his indignation and humorous speeches are remembered among those
new activists and remind us to have a good time with politics.  It is a grave error to take one's chances too seriously with such a fickle mistress.  But she can show you a good time while you are about your business.
 
      Then I met perhaps the ultimate citizen activist, Ellen Mills Pauley.  Ellen is from Putnam County and has been fighting the state government for years now to keep an unnecessary Route 35 selection off of her land.  Some even suggest that Ellen's
project is a magnificent obsession--she is an artist, after all, and you know about them!
 
      But Ellen seems perfectly sane to me.  She is calm, articulate, well-read, and regularly runs circles around her opponents, outwitting them despite a shoestring budget.  Ellen is very resourceful.  She must have read about General Washington at Valley Forge, for like him, against the odds, she keeps it all together for the next battle.  She even manages to keep her pleasant demeanor when dealing with her opponents.  This baffles them to no end.
 
       Activists who get acquainted with one another oftentimes develop a healthy respect for each other's passions, even if they disagree on particulars.  This is because these charismatic folks have a few things in common--things only they share with one another
and no one else.
 
        First of all, they each have...CONVICTION.  And those who don't have much conviction about anything in their lives either shun this characteristic in others or get curious about it.
"Why are they so upset?  What is their beef?"  Their consistency about this conviction
helps to define them as having integrity--something that is always attractive in a person.
And hard to find sometimes.
 
        Secondly, every real activist recognizes in another activist that same tell-tale sign, namely that the person before them has been affected  personally by what they are discussing.  You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices.
 
        Their passion wells up in them because they feel the pain of what they are
debating.  Maybe they feel it practically and directly--as with Ellen and her family farm.
Or maybe, as with John Raese, he is just in disbelief that his state's people are being deprived of better job opportunites because of a lousy political arrangement.
 
      Either way, they feel it in their bones.  And when those bones begin to rattle, watch
out, because it's simply amazing what strong, slow-burning fuel that feeling can give
an activist. 
 
     And that flame keeps on coming until the activist finally is truly heard by the rest of us.
Only then can the activist feel that they have earned their rest, hopefully having imparted their vision to others to carry the torch to continue to throw light on the subject.