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Guest Opinion: Local newspapers keep communities strong

Strong communities don’t just happen. They rely on connection — residents knowing what’s going on, businesses reaching the customers who keep them open and citizens having the facts to make good decisions. Local newspapers provide that connection in ways no other source can. In today’s fractured media environment, trust is the rarest commodity. Confidence in “the media” is low. Only 18 percent of Americans say they trust news on social platforms, and fewer than one in four trust cable networks. But nearly two-thirds say they trust their local newspaper — more than double ...

Guest Opinion: Energy growth through 2026

Projections for increased electric usage this year and next remain strong. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says American electric consumption this year and in 2026 will exceed the record for usage reached last year. Until 2024, the electric market essentially had been flat for most of this decade and at a very low point in 2020. The demand for electricity during the first two decades existed. But consumption levels were offset by efficiency improvements and other structural changes in the economy. Those changes included a shift away from traditional manufacturing in the ...

Guest Opinion: Reforms to West Virginia’s education laws are necessary

Well-educated students who are prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st Century are vital to our success as a state. Today’s students will have unprecedented opportunity to succeed in life if they are properly educated and prepared. This week, West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty pointed to important facts regarding the West Virginia school-age population and regulations regarding school funding. Mr. Hardesty correctly points out that in order to improve public education, legislators must remove regulations put in place by their predecessors that hamper student ...

Essay’s truth evident 60 years after written

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I came across a copy of an essay in the newspaper that made me sit up and pay attention. It was pretty much the reason I began writing in the first place. You see, the words were so impactful, so truthful, that it made me stop and think — really think about the world, about life. When I first read it, the essay was only about 20 years old. But still, it was dead-on accurate and so well-put that I decided to cut the article out of the newspaper and I placed it among my poems, my keepsakes. I still have it to this day, 40 years later. ...

Red versus red: the future of W.Va. politics?

We are more than three months away from the candidate filing period for the 2026 midterm elections. All 100 members of the House of Delegates and 17 members of the 34-member state Senate will be up for election next year. Unfortunately for the West Virginia Democratic Party, most — if not all — of those elections will be settled during the party primaries on May 12 and the early voting period that proceeds that. Republicans control supermajorities in both bodies, with 91 Republicans in the House and 32 Republicans in the Senate. That’s the peak of GOP legislative control at the ...

Youth organizations seeing growth

While many traditional youth organizations seem to be shrinking, or disappearing altogether, there appears to be one bright spot with 4-H. A new club is ready to begin meeting in Chester, with the first official gathering set to take place Oct. 1 at the Chester Municipal Building. It is being assisted through the efforts of the Hancock County Family Support Center. There also are efforts to establish a new club in Weirton, with meetings at the Mary H. Weir Public Library. They join several already established in our area, and, to me, that’s a good thing as it provides more ...