WVPB Executive Producer Suzanne Higgins spoke with Dolly Parton about her global reading program and its expansion in West Virginia, before a private celebration event at the Clay Center.
Acclaimed singer, songwriter, actress, and advocate Dolly Parton visited Charleston, West Virginia this week to celebrate the state’s full participation in the early childhood literacy program she started in 1995.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides a free book each month to participating children aged birth to five. West Virginia’s children have received 3.7 million books to-date, at no charge to their families.
WVPB Executive Producer Suzanne Higgins was thrilled to speak to Dolly about her global reading program and its expansion in West Virginia, before a private celebration event at the Clay Center.
Dolly Parton Speaks Exclusively To WVPB
The Imagination Library program is administered through a partnership between Marshall University’s June Harless Center and the West Virginia Department of Education.
For more information about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, visitimaginationlibrary.com.
Watch the official trailer for Rosemary, WVPB’s documentary profiling the campaign of the first openly transgender person to be elected to public office in West Virginia.
With the pandemic as the backdrop, the film follows Rosemary Ketchum’s campaign and election to Wheeling’s City Council in June, 2020.
Rosemary Premieres Monday, October 26, 2020 at 9 PM on WVPB TV.
Encore Presentations: Wednesday, October 28, 08:00 pm on The West Virginia Channel, and Thursday, October 29, 10:30 pm on WVPB.
Corey Knollinger
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WVPB
Rosemary Ketchum on the hill in Wheeling, West Virginia
Ketchum, elected June 9 to Wheeling City Council, defines herself simply as a determined community activist and human rights advocate.
“Realizing that I could be defined solely by my gender identity was uncomfortable when this campaign started,” Ketchum said.
“For years I’ve been working throughout the state of West Virginia, advocating for issues like racial justice, criminal justice, poverty, mental health and LGBTQ equality, all issues that matter greatly to me as well as the people of Wheeling.”
West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s cameras follow Ketchum pre-COVID 19, on a series of community projects and events, capturing her energy and optimism for making things better in her adopted city.
Rosemary is a film produced by Corey Knollinger and Chuck Kleine. Both are residents of Wheeling and found Ketchum’s long-demonstrated drive to better the lives of the city’s most vulnerable to be inspiring.
“If every community had 10 Rosemarys, the world would be a much better place,” Kleine said, who with Knollinger captured Ketchum’s work as a community activist and her journey on the campaign trail, including the exuberance and elation of an election win, and the emotion of taking the oath of office.
In 1995, when the internet was still in its infancy in terms of use in online commerce, 33-year-old Ken Allman started an online business in his one-bedroom apartment in St. Louis, Missouri.
Allman, a native of Hinton, WV, designed the business as a link between physicians looking for a new position, and hospitals and other facilities looking for medical staff.
“Those were the days when not all of us had email. There was a lot of uncertainty about my ability to make a go of this, and I really didn’t have the financial resources, it was just an idea,” Ken Allman said recently.
Four years later Allman moved the headquarters of his growing business back to his hometown in Summers County, and soon after was employing more than 20 local people.
“Coming back to Hinton allowed me to learn. It was an inexpensive way to operate an online business in a small town, and I think it was one of the best things I could have ever done.”
Today it’s the nation’s largest online physician job bank.
“PracticeLink is really a very simple business model,” said Allman. “Hospitals, medical groups, healthcare systems, academic institutions, government agencies, the military – they often struggle to get all the physicians they need by specialty, or in quality or in quantity.”
“And so physician recruitment is an important part of healthcare behind the scenes,” he said.
“Ken Allman is a very interesting individual in that he has more ideas in 5 minutes than I’ll have in 5 years,” said Greg Rogers, a Hinton businessman and childhood friend of Allman’s. “His mind is always working.”
“He’s always thinking. He’s a visionary,” said Rogers.
In the last couple of years, the entrepreneur, now 54, has expanded his focus to the transformation of downtown Hinton, a town proud of its railroad history.
Together with family, colleagues and local residents, Allman helped lead a restoration of numerous buildings including the local Ritz Theater, and has opened new businesses that cater to both locals and tourists.
Jack David Woodrum, President of the Summers County Commission, acknowledges that over the years many people have had ideas to redevelop and restore Hinton, but Ken Allman had the money and the heart to do it.
“We’ve been able to do little things on our own,” said Woodrum. “But what Kenny’s been able to bring to the county, I mean you look around, it looks like you’re looking at a postcard.”
“The facelift that he’s given the town and the inspiration he’s provided to others to do the same has been tremendous,” said Woodrum.
Today Hinton’s Historic District is one of the largest national historic districts for a town its size in the country.
Allman says there’s more to come.
Allman is one of 3 leaders profiled in West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inspiring West Virginiansprogram airing tonight, Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 8pm with encore broadcasts Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 at 1pm.
One of the fastest growing fields in astrophysics is gravitational waves – what scientists call ripples in the fabric of space-time, first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915.
A hundred years later, in September 2015, they were actually detected by ultra-sensitive lasers.
But others are searching for gravitational waves with pulsars – the dead relics of massive stars. Astronomers detect pulsars by the radio pulses they emit at regular intervals.
Enter Justin Ellis, just 30 years old, from a rural area outside of Charles Town in Jefferson County, WV.
“I work on gravitational waves and pulsar timing,” said Ellis at his lab. “Gravitational waves are a major prediction of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and many other theories of relativity other than Einstein.”
Ellis is one of only a small group of scientists worldwide looking for gravitational waves using pulsars. Once detected, gravitational waves will lead to a revolution in astrophysics and astronomy – rather than looking at the universe, scientists will also be listening to it.
As an Einstein Fellow, Ellis is working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The 3-year post-doctoral fellowship is among the world’s most prestigious fellowships in astrophysics. He also has an appointment at the California Institute of Technology.
“He’s smart, he’s tenacious when he gets a problem, he’s happiest when he’s doing academic detective work,” said astrophysicist and colleague, Stephen Taylor.
“When a new problem or a new interesting topic arises, he really goes at it with gusto,” said Taylor. “He likes to get to the bottom of things, and he’s an incredibly smart guy.”
The millennial is an unlikely science star. Until Ellis went to college, his main interest in life was racing dirt bikes, which he did a lot – and won numerous Motocross competitions.
Then while attending Shepherd University Ellis was inspired by science professor Dr. Jason Best, who has since watched his former student’s amazing career, the potential impact of which he doesn’t underestimate.
“I hope that Justin will continue to not only find joy in studying the universe, but will be able to bring to others that joy of the universe, that respect for our cosmos, and to keep helping others find the deeper understandings, the deeper meanings that he has been able to find,” said Best.
Ellis is one of 3 national leaders profiled in West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inspiring West Virginiansprogram which aired Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016.
Remember when Volkswagen got busted last year for cheating on emissions tests? A settlement that could reach $20 billion is still being negotiated.
Well here’s the back-story – how a car-obsessed country boy from West Virginia became one of the world’s great emissions engineers, uncovering one of the biggest scandals in automobile history.
Forty-six year old Dan Carder of Wood County, WV is a WVU graduate, a mechanical engineer, and runs the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions (known as CAFEE) at West Virginia University.
That means Carder leads a team of faculty members, staff engineers, technicians and more than 30 Masters and PhD students. They carry out pioneering emissions research and testing – from mining equipment to refrigeration units to heavy-duty trucks to passenger vehicles – using all kinds of fuels, including diesel, gasoline, biodiesel, hybrid and electric systems.
The Center is trying to find that perfect balance among competing needs of power, fuel economy, fuel efficiency and low emissions.
“I believe our future looks very bright,” said Carder. “I’m driven by the need to try to figure out a way to bring opportunity and economic development to the state.”
It was here at CAFEE that Carder led a small team that developed the world’s first mobile on-board emission testing system. This led to detecting Volkswagen’s effort to intentionally deceive its customers through the use of a cheating device on their diesel vehicles.
The research was so significant Carder was named to TIME’s 2016 list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People.
WVU President Gordon Gee says the impact that Carder’s work has had on the university, the state and the nation is profound.
“CAFEE has become one of the most central places in this country – if not in the world – where emissions tests take place, because it’s now become a gold standard,” said Gee.
The world class engineer says there’s no place else he’d rather be conducting his research than in the Mountain State, his home.
“I want my future to be here in the state,” said Carder. “I want my kids to be able to grow up here and have opportunity.”
“And I want to be able to make a difference. When I’m retired, and look back and say, ‘now that was a good thing we did and look at all those jobs and opportunities we developed,’ that’s what we need to focus on.”
Carder is one of 3 national leaders profiled in West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inspiring West Virginians program airing Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 8pm with encore broadcasts Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 at 1pm.
The seventh and final season of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inspiring West Virginians radio series will premiere Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 8 p.m., with encore broadcasts at 1 p.m. Dec. 30 and Jan. 2.
“It’s been quite a ride,” Producer/Host Jean Snedegar said of the series, which profiles outstanding scientists, engineers and business people from the Mountain State.
This week’s program takes listeners from a town of 2,600 in southern West Virginia, to a state-of-the-art laboratory at WVU, to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. We’ll meet a rising star in astrophysics, the emissions engineer who brought Volkswagen to its knees, and an entrepreneur who moved his business back to West Virginia, transforming his hometown in the process.
“That brings to 29 the number of people I’ve had the privilege to meet through this radio series,” said Snedegar, an independent producer from Elkins, W.Va.
Over the course of the series, Snedegar and West Virginia Public Broadcasting also produced television profiles about nine of these West Virginia natives.
“All of these folks are known across the United States and in most cases they are global leaders in their fields – yet they were happy to be profiled for Inspiring West Virginians – partly because they want to inspire the next generation of West Virginia leaders in science, engineering and business,” Snedegar said.
Among this impressive list of Mountaineers are three physicians, three astrophysicists, two paleoclimatologists, a field biologist, a biochemist, a pharmacologist, a computer architect, a biophysicist and electrical engineer, two energy engineers, one structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, an aeronautical engineer, one mathematician, three business entrepreneurs, three social entrepreneurs and four top CEOs in software, fashion, government and IT.
“Our mission is to tell West Virginia’s stories,” said Suzanne Higgins, WVPB Executive Producer.
“Jean brought us profiles of John Nash, Brad Smith, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Adrian Melott, Linda Powers, Homer Hickham and Lewis Cantley among others – absolute super stars in their fields, and winners of the most prestigious science and business awards.”
Higgins said with her vast experience as a broadcast journalist at the BBC, Snedegar has delivered sound-rich stories that not only reveal the intimate, personal side of each of these West Virginians, and their background and humanity, Snedegar has also explained some very complicated scientific and mathematical principals and projects in a way that is readily understandable to her radio audience.
“It’s extraordinary to be able to do all of that in a single segment,” said Higgins, who has served as senior producer of the series since its inception in 2010. “We’ve been so proud to work with Jean on this project, which will preserve these important stories for years to come.”
In the newest Inspiring West Virginians program, we hear a “David and Goliath” story – about how a West Virginia engineer, 46-year-old Dan Carder, led a small team at West Virginia University to discover one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers had a cheating device on their diesel vehicles.
Credit Jean Snedegar
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Dan Carder is named to TIME’s 2016 list of the world’s “100 Most Influential People.”
It’s one of the biggest scandals in automobile history, resulting in a record $20 billion dollar fine for Volkswagen.
Carder was subsequently named to TIME’s 2016 list of the world’s “100 Most Influential People.”
Listeners will then travel to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., for an on-site visit with astrophysicist Justin Ellis, born and raised in Jefferson County, W.Va.
Considered absolutely brilliant by his colleagues, this 30-year-old is one of only a few scientists worldwide looking for gravitational waves using pulsars.
Credit Jean Snedegar
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Scientist Justin Ellis is in search of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of spacetime.
And he never really thought about a science career until a professor at Shepherd University inspired him.
Ellis won the very prestigious NASA Einstein Fellowship – and he’s won some very coveted Motocross competitions as well.
The last profile in the Inspiring West Virginians finale is appropriately about a small-town boy who brought his extremely successful business back to his home town, and is leading additional local economic development projects.
Ken Allman, of Hinton, left the Mountain State and started PracticeLink.com, one of the oldest and largest online physician job banks in the country, from a one-bedroom apartment in St Louis, Mo.
A few years later, Allman decided to move the headquarters of his growing business back to his hometown in Summers County, and soon after was employing more than 20 local people.
Credit Jean Snedegar
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Entrepreneur Ken Allman is back home, inspiring a revitalization in Historic Hinton.
Allman then turned his attention to transforming downtown Hinton, a town proud of its railroad history. Together with family, colleagues and community members, Allman helped lead a restoration of numerous buildings, and has opened new businesses that cater to both locals and tourists.
Today, Hinton’s Historic District is one of the largest national historic districts in the country.
Allman says there’s more to come.
Since 2010, Inspiring West Virginians has been made possible by the generous support of the Myles Family Foundation – inspiring West Virginians to soar.
