There have been several questions appearing on the list asking about the pictorial history book the Rowan County Historical Society is publishing. Here is, from the current society president, an explanation for the reason the book is late in being released. Hi All, It seems we have run into a few hurdles which have caused the finished date to drag on past the date we were originally told which was Spring 2000. We are getting calls and inquiries in every way and are now sending out cards to notify those who have already paid for their book. We feel we owe them an explanation so here goes. There seems to be a little more to it than just copying a few pictures on a Xerox machine and stapling them together and it's done. After advertising for people to donate pictures for the book we had very little donated and then as we got closer to the deadline date of submission we received over 2,000. Out of those we had to sort through the overwhelming amount and take enough out until we had the required 750 pictures that the publisher would only allow us to submit. This was not an easy task for our committee as there were always disagreements over the 200-300 pictures we had just taken out that were too good to take out. But we were only allowed the 750. Then we tried the task of selling pages to families and businesses. Again we set a deadline and again after struggling to convince people to purchase a page in memory of loved ones or for whatever reason, at the deadline date we were overwhelmed with requests from people who wanted us to wait until they could get their page put together. We were thrilled to have such interest in families of Rowan County. In working with the publisher there were some problems with communication at first which we later discovered there had been a changeover within the company. We chose to continue with the same publishing company as we were satisfied we would still be delivered a quality product. After settling on the cover design, writing the first pages of introduction and other finishing touches, it is finally being put together and they are now sending us a packet at a time to edit for mistakes. This takes time but again we all want a quality book. Next will be to send the edited product to the printer. We apologize for the delays but we never realized all of the work that had to go into putting this together. Our committee has worked very hard, and we will honor all orders. If anyone is dissatisfied with the time it has taken to get this book finished, we will gladly give them a refund. I apologize for all of the delays. There was never any intention of giving false promises, we just never realized it would take this long. We cannot give an exact date the book will be finished and ready to be mailed out but will give an update on the progress if anyone wishes. My email is ahsurmont@kih.net or snail mail to: Helen Surmont 660 Pleasant Valley Morehead, Ky 40351