Rockwool Open Houses Do Little To Alay Community Concerns

On this West Virginia Morning, the European-based insulation manufacturing company Rockwool held a handful of community open houses last week in Jefferson County. The aim was to better-connect with residents, many of whom don’t want the company to locate in the Eastern Panhandle. As Liz McCormick reports, Saturday’s Rockwool open house drew a crowd of hundreds who rallied outside to protest the plant.

Also on taday’s show, the father of the steel drum, Elliot Mannette, passed away here in West Virginia this week. Originally from Trinidad, Mannette made West Virginia his home in the 90s when he came to West Virginia University to teach students how to build and play steel drums. For 80 years he developed and popularized the instrument. He was honored during the 2011 West Virginia Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony with the Spirit Award.

We hear a segemnt of that ceremony where he is accepting that award and then performing a combination spoken word-steel drum piece with Kaethe George called “Little Girl”.

And we hear the Mountain Stage Song fo the Week — “The Same Love That Made Me Laugh” performed by Grammy-winning blues and soul man Robert Cray, who makes his sixth appearance on Mountain Stage on this week’s encore broadcast.

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 Molly Born, Jessica Lilly, Kara Lofton, Liz McCormick, Dave Mistich, Brittany Patterson and Roxy Todd.

Our news director is Jesse Wright, our producer is Glynis Board and Chuck Anziulewicz hosted the show this week.