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A few surprises and interesting matchups

There were quite a few surprises in the last few days before the registration deadline. In the higher level offices, we had Jeff Kessler, the former state senator announce his intentions of seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in an attempt to unseat current U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. Kessler joins a field of four other Democrats heading toward the May primary election, while Capito faces challenges from five other Republicans. There are now three Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for U.S. House of Representatives in West Virginia’s Second ...

Guest Column: A tax cut that puts West Virginians first

West Virginia is proving something powerful right now: when you focus on the basics, tighten the budget, and let the free market work, good things happen. That progress puts us in a position to do what the government too often forgets to do: return money to the people who earned it. That’s why I am calling on the State Legislature to pass a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut. Over the past year, my administration has made difficult but necessary choices. We tightened spending, restructured government, reduced costs, and focused relentlessly on fixing our state budget. Those ...

Fixing Hancock County Schools is a marathon, not a sprint

By now nearly everyone has most likely seen the dire financial situation that the Hancock County school system currently finds itself in. Years of inadequate personnel management, overspending, and a lack of thorough financial oversight finally caught up with them when it was recently announced that the school system is facing a budget shortfall of approximately $8 million. All of this occurred over the stretch of multiple superintendents and numerous county board members, and was finally brought to light this past fall when then-superintendent Dan Enich notified the West Virginia ...

If you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them

There are some days when the world feels unbearably heavy, days when the headlines seem to blur together and the noise of everyday life makes it hard to hear anything at all. And then, in those rare, quiet moments, the ones where we finally sit still long enough to feel something … a single sentence can change everything — change our perspective on how we see the world. For me, it was the Dalai Lama’s gentle reminder, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” Such simple words, and such a simple ...

Today’s importance of media literacy

I’ll be the first to say that I, as a reporter, am not perfect. No one is. I can sometimes make mistakes in stories, both grammatical and factual. I can sometimes read a bill or a study too quickly and miss something important. If I get something wrong, I work as quickly as I can to send up a correction to my copy desk. Sometimes mistakes escape me and my copy desk. When you write as many words as I do in a week and you read as many words as my editors do, sometimes mistakes fall through the cracks. But when they are pointed out, we try to fix them. I believe the same goes for my ...

Odds and ends to wrap up the month

Just a few thoughts to end out the week, and the month, as we all try to do whatever we can to take our minds of the ongoing frigid temperatures. •••••• It came down to the last few days, but many of the races set to go on our local ballots have started to fill up. As of Friday morning, there were four candidates for three seats on the Brooke County school board and two candidates for Brooke Commission. Three (Two Republicans and one Democrat) have stepped up for the Hancock County Commission race, with eight now vying for one of the three seats on the Hancock County ...