An appreciation for Billy Joe Ratcliff – MSHA Inspector
Dear Editor:
It was going to be a busy day. Virginia Living Museum people were coming to pick up some petrified logs and I was going to have them help strap the logs and guide them onto the trailer while I ran the loader lifting and placing them. It was going to be easy with those guys’ help. At the same time, the National Geographic Jason Education Project team was assembling in the parking lot for a trip underground to document our gem mine. A Smithsonian Institution mineralogist was working with them to guide the tour which included three smart high school students. The plan was the students would ask smart questions and the Doctor would give bright answers, all recorded by the video team and the audio team and a Director.
I slipped into my office to escape the general chaos but where I could watch the action when, I felt a presence; I looked over my shoulder and saw this giant filling the doorway and his barely clearing the top, and I let out an, “Oh No!” Billy Joe said, Aren’t you glad to see me?” cheerfully. I’m glad he wasn’t stopping me on some West Virginia back road in the middle of the night back in his Deputy days! So, I couldn’t use the free, untrained, un-equipped help to load the petrified wood and did it by myself, the “team” standing by uselessly and Billy Joe standing back and watching everything!
Back in the store, the National Geographic team began arriving and I immediately knew we had trouble. They had no hardhats and were wearing little caps lamps on their heads like a bunch of coon hunters! Billy Joe looked them over with a jaundiced expression and asked, “Do you think you are going underground like that?” None of them had hard-toed boots either. One student girl was at least wearing cowgirls’ boots. She and Billy Joe had lively discussion about her boots. She argued, “They are hard-toed; my horse has stepped on my foot and no problem.” She pulled them off and gave them to Billy Joe and he said, “Show me where it says “MSHA Approved’?” Well, Billy Joe won.
To add “injury to insult,” the cowgirl boots came off, the soft street shoes came off, we found every old, stiff, derelict boot left on the minesite, cracked, leaking and wrong sizes, and the team was forced to wear them! It was comical. Good going, Billy Joe! I got just one violation that day; he found a cover not on an electrical panel and true to his profession, he “wrote me up”! What a day.
Billy Joe loved hamburgers. On his first inspection at lunch time, he asked where he could get a good hamburger. We told him about our favorite place and we said it will be the best he’d ever eaten. He commented something like, “I’ve eaten a lot of hamburger in a lot of places and it would have to be awfully good to be the best” Later, he was back and he said, “That is a good hamburger!” From then on, we got a break while Billy Joe had a hamburger.
But Billy Joe, you were always fair. You really did keep us safe and you added much professionalism to our underground gem mine. You alerted us to upcoming large problems like developing a second means of access to our deeper levels knowing it would take time mining by hand as we did. You brought your technical skills and mining experience to us. You were always pleasant. I and we at Morefield mine thank you and we are glad we got to know you, appreciate you as a person, and to meet a Massy Energy “hot seat” continuous miner operator. I know you were a believer and I know you are in a safe place, a Heavenly place. No rock falls, no gas, no accidents, no hazards, no darkness. Welcome home, our West Virginia Friend!
Sam and Sharon Dunaway and our team 4/1/2024
