The 2026 WVPB PBS KIDS Writers Contest has begun! Submissions are due by March 31, 2026.
Find videos, resources and activities for teaching civic education in WV classrooms.
On Demand
On Demand
Watch locally produced documentaries & more.
On Demand
On Demand
West Virginia Morning
Inside Appalachia
West Virginia Week
Mountain Stage
Us & Them
The Legislature Today
The Legislature This Week
Send us your comments and questions.
Stream our board meetings.
Check out the latest WVPB news.
Sign up for our newsletter and get weekly updates.
Meet the WVPB staff.
WV Educational Broadcasting Authority, the WVPB Foundation, and the Friends of WVPB.
Come work with us!
Sponsor impactful and engaging media and entertainment.
Use your IRA to make a gift to WVPB.
Become a member with your gift of $1,000 or more.
Make WVPB part of your legacy.
Manage your membership account.
Learn how you can Protect and Sustain West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Ed Rabel was born in Kanawha County and grew up in St. Albans before a career in journalism took him to war zones and locations around the world.
Rabel graduated from St. Albans High School in 1957 and then Morris Harvey College in 1963. He worked in local radio before becoming news director of WCHS-TV in Charleston.
He joined CBS News in 1966. He was the last reporter to interview the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the day before he was assassinated in 1968 and volunteered to cover Vietnam in 1969. He also published the memoir “Ed Rabel Reports: Lies, Wars and Other Misadventures.”
Rabel’s attorney Timothy Koontz confirmed Rabel died on Dec. 3. He was 86 years old. Koontz said Rabel was someone who didn’t suffer fools gladly, but he spoke in the highest terms of what he called Rabel’s second career — teaching.
After retiring from broadcasting as a national correspondent with NBC News, he returned home to Alum Creek. He was an adjunct professor of journalism at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communications at Washington State University.
In 2014, he ran as an independent for Congress, but lost in the general election.
Rabel was a regular columnist for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, occasionally stirring up local reactions, like when he declared there was no reason to watch local television news.
Since 2019, he has worked as a substitute teacher in West Virginia and in Virginia, where he died.
Add WVPB as a preferred source on Google to see more from our team
On this West Virginia Week, seven mining operations are to close, the state Senate votes to ban abortion medication by mail, and Gov. Patrick Morrisey presses for tax cuts.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThis week on Inside Appalachia, we talk with East Tennessee’s Amythyst Kiah. Her new album contemplates the cosmos. Also, hair salons are important gathering places where Black women can find community. And, West Virginia poet Torli Bush uses story to tackle tough subjects.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsAcclaimed singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah released "Still + Bright" last year, which featured guests like S.G. Goodman and Billy Strings. Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke with Kiah from her home in Johnson City, Tennessee at that time. We listen to an encore of that conversation.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsAmerica continues to wrestle with racial division, but music has often been a space where those barriers are challenged. In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay revisits a 1960s moment when a band refused to perform unless a mixed-race couple was allowed to dance — and paid the price for taking that stand. It’s a story about courage, consequences and the uneasy intersection of music and race in America.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News
