Del. Denise Campbell, D-Randolph, announces that she and Del. Bill Hartman, D-Randolph, have teamed up with the Dryfork Recreation Center to develop a new license plate, while holding a mock-up of the new plate during the annual Autumn on the Dryfork event Saturday morning near Harman.
HARMAN, W.VA. — Del. Denise Campbell, D-Randolph, announced that she, and Del. Bill Hartman, D-Randolph, had been working with the Dryfork Recreation Center to develop a new West Virginia license plate that will feature the phrase “In God We Trust.”
The announcement came during the group’s annual Autumn on the Dryfork event on Saturday that featured food, fun and entertainment to help raise funds for upgrades to the park near Harman.
Campbell started off the presentation by saying that a member of the Harman community, Mike Snyder, had come to her with the signatures of more than 2,000 people who were interested in having the license plate.
“We had one of your own members, from Harman, come to me about a year ago and ask if I would be interested in helping them get a license plate that says ‘In God We Trust,’ that you can purchase and have as a West Virginia license plate,” Campbell said.
The Dryfork Recreation Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is required to complete a lengthy process to create a new license plate. Campbell said she came to a board meeting for the group and asked them to get involved.
Campbell went on to say that it had been a long process, but a couple weeks ago they were able to make it happen with the help of the Dryfork Recreation Center and board of director’s secretary Phyllis Yokum.
“The process was a little bit difficult, because there are very strict regulations of how a license plate is created in West Virginia and so, you have to have a 501(c)(3) organization and the organization cannot be of any religious affiliation,” Campbell said. “It cannot be of a political affiliation, and there were several organizations that were interested as well but they were 501(c)(3)-7 or -5 and you can’t have any dash after it, it has to be 501(c)(3).”
“So, I work a lot with Phyllis (Yokum) and members here in Harman and I thought ‘I wonder if they would be interested in maybe being the sponsor for this.'” she added.
Campbell said she was happy the group agreed to be involved in the project, and the license plate should be available within the next month.
“What will happen is there will be an application that the Dryfork Community Rec Center will have … and as soon as we get those 200 applications with money attached and sent to the DMV, then that license plate will start being made,” Campbell said. “Sometime in that process, there will actually be a special program in Charleston unveiling this license plate and so Dryfork, West Virginia, (in) Randolph County, will be the sponsor of a license plate that will be available for anyone in the state of West Virginia who wants to purchase it.”
“We are very, very happy,” Campbell added. “We think this is really something great for Randolph County and for Dryfork, and I just appreciate the Dryfork Community Rec Center for allowing this to happen.”
Yokum said the Dryfork Recreation Center is pleased to be involved as well.
“We are very community-based – a tight-knit community. We just have really good values, I think,” Yokum said. “When Denise (Campbell) asked me if she could come to the meeting and present this, I asked Rex (Vance), our president, and he said ‘yeah, sure, tell her to come.'”
“She came that night and presented it,” Yokum added. “The discussion is just all the same, we are very patriotic, that’s (In God We Trust) the foundation our nation was based on, and we just feel we need to get back to that. ‘In God We Trust’ has been taken off a lot of things, and we just think it should go the other direction.”
Anyone interested in more information or an application for the license plate, can contact Yokum at the Dryfork Community Recreation Center by phone or by checking out the group’s Facebook page.