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Gas prices are likely to remain above the $3 mark at least through Thanksgiving.

AAA reported a lower weekly increase in rising gas prices, but still reported the national average at $3.40 per gallon — 53-cents higher than a month ago and $1.54 higher than a year ago. Even though the average is a lot higher than normal for this time of year, the 2-cent weekly increase was the lowest in more than a month.

AAA spokesperson Clay Ingram said Labor Day usually marks the end of the summer travel season.  Ingram said as the amount of travel decreases, so too does the demand for gas, which triggers a decline in gas prices. However, Ingram said there were a lot of little things that occurred this year that cause prices to climb instead of falling.

“The supply and demand has been off this year,” Ingram said. “Usually, the demand is really low this time of year. But, we had a weird situation this year where there was an extended summer. People kept traveling and the demand has remained strong.

“We also have had a small supply issue. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut back on production to drive up prices and it worked. Then we had a hurricane in Louisiana that put some of the refineries off-line for maintenance and repairs. We also had a small pipeline on the East coast that was shut down. It was just a lot of little things happening all at once.”

Ingram said OPEC meets next week and it was likely that the organization would increase production slightly to profit from the higher prices. He also said the East coast pipeline had reopened and all refineries were up and running.

The bad news for Alabama motorists is that gas prices in the state have seen the largest increase in price in the past month — 33-cents higher than a month ago.

Ingram said he expected the prices to remain fairly stable throughout November.

“We have cooler weather coming in, that should cause the demand for gasoline to drop,” Ingram said. “I think we should see a price decrease soon. It may be a little bit cheaper by Thanksgiving. It’s hard to predict right now how long it will take for the price decreases to go into effect. But, we should start seeing lower prices pretty soon and that should continue through February.

rt visited Banks Primary School and distributed student dictionaries to all third graders.

Members of the Brundidge Rotary Club were at Banks Primary School on Monday to present all third-grade students with their personal copies of “A Student’s Dictionary.”

Each year, the Brundidge Rotarians donate “A Student Dictionary to all third-grade students at Banks, Pike County, Goshen, Ariton and Pike Liberal Arts.

The student dictionary program is an annual project for the Brundidge Rotarians and is dedicated to third graders at local schools.

Rotarians Danny Graham and Moses Davenport told the students that the dictionaries they received will be of use to them throughout their school years.

“These are your dictionaries to take home and to use. We encourage you to use them often in your schoolwork and any time you don’t know what a word means,” Davenport said. “Every time you look up a word in your dictionary, you learn something you didn’t know before.”

Graham told the students that putting dictionaries in the hands of third grade students is a worthwhile project for Rotarians. He said Rotarians throughout the world are dedicated to helping young people have successful lives through education and in other ways.”

He told the students that, when he was a youngster much like them, Rotary Clubs all around the world were dedicated to the eradication of polio. a crippling disease that affected children.

“Through years of dedication and commitment by Rotary Clubs and other organizations around the globe, polio has been eradicated in all countries except Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Graham said.

The Rotarians expressed hope that the students will use their personal dictionaries to help them with their studies and build vocabularies that will be useful in their daily lives, as students and as contributing adults.

Tammy Calhoun, Banks assistant principal, expressed appreciation to the Rotarians for their support of education in Pike County. She thanked them for the student dictionaries and for their commitment to the Pike County community.

Principal Shantel Rouse also thanked the Rotarians.

“We are dedicated to being all around community schools and to our students making good grades,” Rouse said. “We thank the Brundidge Rotary Club for the dictionaries that will be learning tools for our students today and in the future.”