Extracurricular Activities, Comfort Food And Our Song Of The Week This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, a small tavern has been serving the community simple, inexpensive grill food for four generations, and the locals keep coming back year after year. Also, we have an update from the statehouse and this week’s Mountain Stage Song of the Week.

A bill to help students pay for community and technical college and another that would allow private and homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at public schools are on the move in the West Virginia Senate. Liz McCormick has more.

A study by Penn State researchers has found that songbirds nesting near the sound of natural gas compressors had fewer hatched eggs. StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Anne Danahy reports.

The Inside Appalachia crew has been cranking out stories recently about some of our state’s most beloved hot dog stands. We step over the border into Roanoke, Virginia, to learn about a restaurant that’s more than 90 years old. Ever since the 1930s, customers have been able to walk into the Texas Tavern and order “two and a bowl with.” If you’re not familiar with the tavern’s lingo, that translates to, “two hamburgers and a bowl of chile beans with onions.” Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams visited the “joint” to find the secret of its longevity.

This week’s fresh episode of Mountain Stage was recorded last November in Charleston without a live audience. It is the second in a series of three live shows recorded in the final months of 2020. Ranky Tanky is a South Carolina based band that specializes in “Gullah” music – a style born out of the coastal region and influenced by West African traditions. Our Song of the Week, “Beat Em Down,” is about meeting adversity with compassion and appears on Ranky Tanky’s most recent release ‘Good Time.’ The record earned the band a Grammy in 2020.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Glynis Board, Dave Mistich, Caitlin Tan, Jessica Lilly, Liz McCormick, Eric Douglas, Emily Allen, June Leffler, Duncan Slade and Roxy Todd.

Andrea Billups is our news director. Eric Douglas was our producer this week.

Teresa Wills and Chuck Anziulewicz are our hosts.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning