Editor, News-Register:

The Board of Directors of the West Virginia Humanities Council, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, was recently notified by the federal Department of Government Efficiency that support to our Council from the National Endowment for the Humanities was being terminated.

This abrupt termination of long-established and congressionally appropriated NEH funding support for the Council, which serves as the NEH’s official affiliate in and for the Mountain State, if sustained, will cause the closure of all Council activities within West Virginia.

The financial support received from NEH represents 50% of the Council’s annual budget. That funding is matched dollar-for-dollar by donations from West Virginians which together provide the funds that enable the Council to host events, provide programs, and support projects that preserve our state’s history and cultural heritage, and promote public discussions about issues that matter to West Virginians.

These funds enable the Council to create sustainable partnerships between the public and private sectors which contribute well over a million dollars every year to our state’s cultural economy, in the form of the grants and programs we provide to West Virginia cultural organizations, historical societies, schools, community centers, municipalities, and other entities.

As the Council’s Board of Directors, we come from all areas of West Virginia, from communities of every size. We have seen firsthand, in our hometowns and in every county, the profound impact of the Council’s work. Rescinding of congressionally appropriated funding for the NEH means that our capacity to serve West Virginians will disappear, as will our significant contribution to our state’s rapidly growing cultural economy.

The impact will be felt everywhere, nowhere more directly than in the rural areas of our state. Our work is accomplished through the work that West Virginians do themselves. These dollars are locally directed; the projects they support are locally designed and locally delivered. Our work is a model of federal funding done responsibly and cost-effectively, by returning tax dollars to the people of West Virginia in support of programs they themselves support, create, and execute in their home communities.

West Virginians have historically demonstrated a culture of working past our differences to achieve ends that benefit us all. We call on our congressional representatives to defend and ensure the delivery of NEH funding appropriated in support of the West Virginia Humanities Council–funding that has, for 50 years, worked to serve all West Virginians.

W.Va. Humanities Council Board

George Brown, President

Paul Papadopoulos, VP

J. Dan McCarthy, Treasurer

Leslie Baker, Secretary

Matt Bond, Charleston

Gregory Coble, Shepherdstown

Cicero Fain III, Huntington

Rita Hedrick-Helmick, Glenville

Elliot Hicks, Charleston

Charles Ledbetter, Charleston

Michele Moure-Reeves, Mathias

Amy Pancake, Romney

Katrena Ramsey, Ravenswood

Lisa Rose, Morgantown

Megan Tarbett, Hurricane

Pam Tarr, Charleston

John Unger, Martinsburg

Bryson VanNostrand, Buckhannon

Lydia Warren, Fairmont