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Invest your time to help others

Editorials

Area residents will have an opportunity to perform a simple and selfless act Wednesday. That’s when this year’s Jefferson County Media Day Blood Drive is scheduled to be held at the St. Florian Event Center in Wintersville. The doors will be open from noon to 5:30 p.m., and we hope that everyone who is eligible will participate in the annual event. Late spring and early summer often bring a need for blood that sometimes isn’t met. Regular donors might be on vacation or involved with other activities that keep them away from donation centers. That said, the need for blood does ...

A requiem for Doug Skaff, a complicated man

Local Columns

I really wasn’t expecting to have to write, in essence, an obituary for former lawmaker and politician Doug Skaff last Tuesday. The accident that killed him remains under investigation, but by all reports it was a freak accident on I-79 near Weston. Skaff’s SUV went into the back of a semi-truck and despite trying to brake in time, it was too late. Skaff was only five years older than me at 48. I had known him since his first stint in the House of Delegates in what was once the largest of the multi-member districts covering Kanawha County. He was a rising star in Democratic ...

To Whom it May Concern ... Happy Father’s Day

Local Columns

To Whom it May Concern … I would like to wish you a Happy Father’s Day. I want to thank you for all of the years you awoke before dawn — before the sun even thought about rising in the morning sky … if only for the sake of your family. For the years that somehow became decades doing a job you didn’t much care for. One that was not only physically tolling — but mentally exhausting. Yet, you never complained. Never thought about quitting, despite the fact it took you away from the people you loved the most in this world. I thank you for being the kind of father who ...

Guest column: Fix the GOP tax bill before it hurts West Virginian families

Local Columns

In my work across West Virginia as a deacon and nonprofit director, I meet families every day who are doing everything right—raising kids, working long hours, pinching pennies—yet they still struggle to put food on the table. That’s why I’m so troubled by proposals in the tax bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid in our state. For thousands of families in West Virginia, SNAP is the difference between a parent putting food on the table and an entire household going to bed hungry. But ...

The important parts of fatherhood

Editorials

Fathers don’t always receive the attention they deserve, often because many fathers garner attention that isn’t so good. Tales of single fathers and stay-at-home dads are not as common as tales of fathers gone wrong, fathers who succumb to the terrible pressures of supporting a family in a tight economy or fathers who simply never even tried to meet those pressures in the first place. But all fathers don’t simply act as a genetic donor who then goes away or goes wrong. The fathers who stick around, who work at the job of caring for and supporting children while trying to ...

Guest column: Mediation: A huge step in the right direction

Local Columns

We strive at the Public Service Commission to resolve complaints in the simplest, fairest, and most expedient manner possible, consistent with your concerns. One very handy tool we have been able to use is the mediation process, which is handled by the Commission’s Division of Administrative Law Judges. The dedicated lawyers who populate this office handle any number of cases that are referred to them by the three-member Commission. The cases before the judges involve many different issues and are often complex. The Division also resolves cases through mediation. In Mediation, ...