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March for Freedom Is Not Forgotten This Memorial Day

Sometimes on one of those late spring days when Memorial Day comes, you can almost see them, marching, marching onward, the legion of the forgotten dead. In the soft stillness and solitude of a country graveyard in the evening hush, occasionally you can hear the muffled beat of a drum as the endless ranks of that forgotten legion slip by, file after file, in ghostly procession never ending. They materialize, these war dead whom we honor Memorial Day, somehow, when the eye wanders idly across old grave markers to halt at a small obelisk with worn carvings making the words almost ...

‘West Virginia First’ Agreement To Help All Mountaineers

The opioid scourge is one of the greatest challenges West Virginia has ever faced. The vast oversupply of prescription opioids caused or contributed to too many senseless deaths, and too many broken families, over many, many years. We have fought hard—and we’re still fighting—to bring a sense of healing to the state. While litigation and settlements will not bring back the lives lost from the opioid epidemic, our hope is that the monies garnered will provide much needed help to those affected the most. Gov. Jim Justice recently signed into law Senate Bill 674, which codifies ...

Marshall Memo: Williams a Winner in Essay Contest; Activity Pass; and Cameron

Lorelei Williams, an 8th grade student at Moundsville Middle School, was among the top winners in this year’s essay contest held by the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia. Eleven other students from different counties also received awards ranging from first place to honorable mention. Williams was one of four students to receive honorable mention honors in the contest. More than 230 essays were submitted from 40 classrooms in 25 counties. “I’m very impressed with the participation in this year contest,” Meagan James, program coordinator for the association, ...

Permitting Reform Necessary for America’s Future

America’s permitting process is broken, consumed by bureaucratic delays and endless litigation at every turn. Our inability to permit projects in West Virginia and across the country on a timely basis is not only harming our energy security and ability to provide for ourselves, it’s also hurting our national security and ability to reduce our reliance on foreign adversaries who do not share our values. We only have to look at Putin’s ability to cripple much of Europe by cutting off Russia’s energy exports to see what happens if we continue down this road of, or open up the door ...

Lessons Learned From Becoming a Political ‘Opposum’

There’s a saying in political circles that the only thing in the middle of the road is an Opossum that has met an untimely end from a car’s tire, and the victim usually has a yellow line painted over it by the highway department. I’m hearing from friends on both the political left and right that they are beginning to feel no matter how carefully considered and measured their opinion, they have to avoid that truck that’s careening down the highway being violently jerked from left to right, depending on who is in office. Just like the Opossum, we are mere inches from being ...

Marshall Memo: Development Grants; Watershed Cleanup Day; and ‘Mega Mart’

Seventeen Marshall County organizations have received funds through the Marshall County Commission’s Community Development program. The commission earmarks $60,000 yearly and then has a nine-person committee review the requests. This year’s requests were made by 21 agencies, with 17 receiving funding. This year there were four $5,500 awardees: the cities of Benwood, Glen Dale, McMechen and Moundsville. Other receiving funds and the amount are: Big Run Community Association, Bowman Ridge Community, Graysville Community, Limestone Community, Mount Olivet Community Park and ...