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Local Columns

Country Roads, Take Me Home

I turned on my car radio this morning and had to smile. John Denver’s song, “Country Roads” was playing, which always makes me happy. I am not an exception in loving this song; and hearing it lifts my spirit, which is true for all West Virginians. As I listened to the lyrics, my mind ...

Valentine’s Day is not celebrated by everyone

While driving down the street the other day, something made me slow down. As I came upon what had suddenly caught my attention, I immediately braked. Right there in the middle of the street. Before me was a house outlined in pink, red and white lights. These were certainly not remnants of the ...

Will a whiteout change political history?

Independent and unaffiliated voters were saved by the snow last week after the West Virginia Republican Executive Committee postponed its winter meeting where they were to take up a resolution to close the May GOP primary to non-Republicans. That meeting was postponed until this Saturday, so ...

Looking for competition this election

The filing period for West Virginia’s May primary election, as well as Weirton’s municipal election in November, will wrap up Jan. 27. A lot of the attention for this year’s election has been focused on the presidency, and, here in West Virginia, the race to be the state’s next U.S. ...

History in the Hills: Captains of industry

My wife and I met in Pittsburgh. At that time we were both in graduate school for our master’s in public history. Our interests were pretty much aligned, and we took all the same classes together which was easy to do in our small program at Duquesne University. Part of our program was to ...

There are times when life is simply a game

I’ve had a pretty bad year so far. This is not anything new, of course. I am usually having a pretty bad year. But for some reason, this one in particular has really gotten to me. There were moments amid the anger and tears when I often caught myself saying, “I just can’t ...