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History in the Hills: New Years of the past

Just a few days ago, we ushered in 2025. I didn’t do much, to be honest, on New Year’s Eve. My wife and I spent the evening at home with our son Paul and watched some coverage of the events going on in Times Square. Life with small children makes it impossible to go out to celebrate the New Year like we did years ago, but that’s OK. I am quite content to stay right at home with those I love and welcome the new year together. At New Years Eve, I always get more nostalgic than I already am, and I find myself reflecting on the previous year or years that have gone by. For this ...

Mission accomplished: Confidence regained

I have thoroughly enjoyed my tenure as Secretary of State. I love serving with the office’s professional staff, our hard-working county clerks, and our dedicated legislature. It has been the highlight of my career to serve the wonderful people of WV for the last eight years. Before being elected in 2016, I served five years with the U.S. Department of State in Afghanistan and 23 years in the U.S. Army assigned to military hotspots all over the world. I can assure you, there is no place like home in WV! At West Point and in the Army, I learned the value of teamwork. When people work ...

Multiplicity in the Governor’s Mansion

There is a popular meme often shared on the internet of two individual Spider-Men pointing at each other. Sometimes the meme includes four Spider-Men or more. Replace the Spider-Men with Gov. Jim Justice, outgoing Senate President Craig Blair, incoming Senate President Randy Smith, and Governor-Elect Patrick Morrisey all pointing at each other. The one thing all four have in common is one is the current governor, one is the incoming governor, and the two senate presidents might have had to briefly act as governor. But that possible Golden Horseshoe question is no longer a ...

Hoping for more opportunity in 2025

In our offices, our staff typically has two times where we have an opportunity to take stock in some of the moments of the previous year. One is when contest time rolls around, usually February or March, when we work to look for potential entries to send up against other newspapers in the state. The other, of course, is the end of each calendar year when we put together our annual Year in Review section. Our executive editor, Ross Gallabrese, spent quite a few hours this year going through stacks of newspapers, picking out a variety of events featured in both The Weirton Daily Times ...

Last call for Christmas: Going … going… gone

Well, Christmas has come and Christmas has gone. It goes by way too fast, doesn’t it? All of the worrying we do. All of the preparation. We are constantly wondering what we should purchase for those who mean the most to us ... and then pray that it will be something they won’t want to return. We stress about how we are supposed to pay for it all … with money we don’t have and credit cards with no vacancy remaining. Then there is the time-consuming decorating that goes into creating our holiday displays … only to be taken down soon after everything is finally put ...

A fresh helping of Christmas potpourri

One of my favorite movies is “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” It’s the fictional story of a composer who starts work as a high school music teacher in the 1960s to make ends meet. While not his desire for a career, he begins to care for teaching and his students over the decades. The movie ends with Mr. Holland’s forced retirement in the 1990s. He spent his lifetime working in his free time on a musical composition that he thought would never be heard. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he had made an impact as a teacher. But then he is led into an auditorium filled with former ...