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Address Ohio County 911's Staffing Issues

Editorials

The most important voice an Ohio County resident may ever hear is that of a stranger. It might come in the middle of the night, when a loved one stops breathing. It might come after a terrible crash, when someone is trapped inside a vehicle. Or it might come when a parent discovers a child is missing. It is the dispatcher’s voice on the other end of a 911 call. This past week, Ohio County residents learned that the people responsible for answering those calls are working through a significant staffing shortage. Ohio County 911 Director Rick Pritt told county commissioners that ...

A Family That Cares

Editorials

The Contraguerro family and their company, Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration, once again showed their love and devotion to the Ohio Valley community with a $150,000 gift to the soon-to-be-built WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s Robert Sonneborn Family Pediatric Outpatient Center on the campus of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital. That donation will sponsor the center’s new reception area. And that’s far from the first gift the Contraguerros and Panhandle have made to WVU Medicine or the Ohio Valley at large. The family and the company long have been champions of the community, ...

Vivek Ramaswamy: East Palestine Deserves The Truth — I'll Fight To Bring It To Light

Local Columns

It’s been over three years since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, and officials burned vinyl chloride in plumes over a village of fewer than 5,000 people. In February 2023, this community on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border was the subject of international news and thrust to the center of American politics. Media and political figures arrived when the spotlight was on. When the cameras left, the town learned what happens when no one is watching. In 2024, class-action attorneys negotiated a $600 million settlement with Norfolk Southern that required residents to waive ...

Hoppy Kercheval: Help Needed For West Virginia's Working Poor

Local Columns

I wrote about West Virginia’s poverty level in last week’s commentary, based on U.S. Census figures. However, those numbers do tell only part of the story of the financial challenges in our state. The United Way’s ALICE report is more revealing. ALICE stands for asset limited, income constrained and employed. It’s a measure of those living above the federal poverty level but still struggling to make ends meet. ALICE is a more real-life view of poverty because it presents a comprehensive look at the cost of household basics—housing, childcare, food, transportation, health ...

John McCabe: Residents Deserve Answers On National Road Issue

Local Columns

I’ve been wondering something in recent months, an issue that moved front-and-center again last week: How many times must the same stretch of National Road in Wheeling break open before someone decides the people living along it — and those who use it for their daily commute, to get to Wheeling Park or Wheeling Park High School — deserve more than another patch? For residents along National Road near Wheeling Park, that question — and an answer — is long overdue. More than a half-dozen major waterline breaks over the past few years have turned an ordinary expectation — ...

Susie Nelson: The Best Tribute To Dolly Parton Is To Give To Others Like She Did

Local Columns

When news broke that Dolly Parton had died in August, the tributes poured in fast. Social media and news reports shared clips of “9 to 5,” memories of “Jolene,” and photos from Dollywood. While I was a fan of her music and entertainment, I was even more enamored by her philanthropy. That’s the real measure of Parton’s life. She wrote some of the most iconic songs in American music, but she may have done just as much good with her checkbook as she did with her guitar. The way she gave, not just how much, is a model for the rest of us. In 1995, Parton launched the Imagination ...