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Guest Opinion: In West Virginia, we check on each other

This past week was Mental Illness Awareness Week, and World Mental Health Day was Wednesday. It’s a helpful reminder, but the truth is West Virginians don’t wait for a calendar to do the right thing. We check on our neighbors. We bring a casserole and we bring a phone number. We don’t look away when someone’s struggling. We lean in. That’s who we are and how we live. Over the past year, the work of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in West Virginia has expanded with that same spirit. We’ve grown education and peer support so families have somewhere to turn. We’ve ...

It’s “perfect”ly fine to just be good enough …

We all strive to make every situation perfect, don’t we? We try so hard to make our life the best that it can be. But we have to realize that nothing is perfect, and “good enough” is good enough. When we are born, our parents immediately begin to instill in us all types of values. We are taught to be honest. We are told to be kind. We are instructed to sit up straight. We are reminded to always use the terms “please” and “thank you.” That one is something my grandson, Layne, has been doing since he first started to try saying words. We learn how we should ...

History in the Hills: Looking at our stuff

This past week was fall clean-up in Weirton, and my family certainly took advantage of that opportunity. I really hate to get rid of good things that still could be used. We tried our best to donate as much as possible, but sometimes, things just wear out, break and outlive their useful life. I am a collector and a saver, so I usually strip something down to its bare bones and save anything useful from something before trashing it. As a result of all this saving, I have amassed a collection of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, boards, trim, wires and scraps of various origins, just in case ...

Keeping the government open shouldn’t be a partisan fight

As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of my primary responsibilities is ensuring that our government is responsibly funded so it remains open and working for the people we represent, including the hardworking West Virginians. That’s why I’m deeply disappointed to see Washington once again stumble into a completely avoidable government shutdown — this time because Senate Democrats have refused to join Republicans in supporting a commonsense, short-term measure that would keep the government open. Let’s be clear about what this measure — known as a ...

Reporter’s Notebook: Reading comprehension a necessity

Much like a lot of things these days, a speech given last week by West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty has become a Rorschach test depending on where you stand on the issue of public education versus “school choice.” During the state Board of Education’s regular meeting last week, Hardesty’s message was simple: if you believe in the notion of competition improving the quality of education, then lawmakers need to untie the hands of their local teachers and educators so they can better compete with private schools and home schooling. To demonstrate how ...

Making government more accessible

In my mind probably the only thing worse than having to attend/cover/participate in a meeting at 8 a.m. on a Saturday would be having to do so for a meeting at 7:30 a.m. on a Monday. Some of you may remember my frustration in January 2024 when Weirton Council decided to hold a work session early on a Saturday morning to discuss planning for the year. It was cold, and I was in no mood to be social anyway, let alone to listen and report on an essentially lame duck council throw out a series of ideas (many of which were never accomplished). We’ll see how I handle things this coming ...