The Bland County Historical Society wishes to nominate two very special people into the Bland County Hall of Fame:

Zareda Shufflebarger Earnest and Nancy Clark Tate

Founding Members of the Bland County Historical Society

Zareda Shufflebarger Earnest and Nancy Clark Tate are so honored because they are considered the founding members of the Bland County Historical Society.  They served as officers of the Bland County Historical Society from 1988 until 2004.   In her Christmas letter of 1989, Zareda wrote the following to her family and friends:  “We organized our first Bland County Historical Society in November of 1988.  We now have 62 members and our certificate of incorporation from the State Corporation Commission.  Without the good help of volunteers, I could not have made this a reality.”  BCHS was first housed at Kegley Manor in Bastian and remained there until it occupied space at the Wolf Creek Indian Village.  Zareda also included with her Christmas 1989 letter a copy of the article from the newsletter at Kegley Manor dated October, 1989.  You will note they were using the same display cases from the Palmer Carroll Store in Rocky Gap and some of the pictures of Bland doctors, (Dr. G. B. Kegley and Dr. Jacob Wagner that we now have on display in our Society display room.  That newsletter article appears below:

In 1991 both of these ladies also worked diligently on updating our 1961 History of Bland County.  They added a very valuable index to this historical account of our county in 1991.  They are shown here working with several other members of the community on the History of Bland County. 

We honor these women by nominating them to our Bland County Hall of Fame.

See Nancy Tate'sJanuary 2016 Obituary