Yesterday, Dr. Ken Sullivan, the executive director of the West Virginia Humanities Council, traveled from Charleston to visit the Ohio County Public Library for a Lunch With Books program. Sullivan was the editor of the West Virginia Encylopedia, a massive, one volume reference for the mountain state sporting the slogan, "All there is to know about West Virginia." Sullivan discussed the saga of the making of the three pound book, which began ten years ago and cost nearly one million dollars to complete. Nearly six hundred freelance writers from numerous fields of expertise, including several from the Wheeling area, contributed to the more than two thousand articles contained in the book. Topics range from archeology to history to culture and even trivia. Yo-yo tycoon Donald Duncan, for example, grew up in Huntington. Sullivan told the crowd of 34 people that the encyclopedia contains hundreds of entries having to do with Wheeling and Ohio County. He closed by reading from a poem by Phyllis Wilson Moore that appears in the book's opening pages: "God, in a playful mood, Piled up West Virginia, Then patted her down again. Pile, pinch, press, punch, On a hunch he left her that way. And it was good..."
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