ALERT (03/07/2024): Due to a lightning strike, WVPB TV will be off the air in the Bethany/Wheeling area until new parts arrive. Thank you for your patience.
This week's broadcast of Mountain Stage was recorded at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, CA. On this episode, host Kathy Mattea welcomes GRAMMY-winning Australian rock star Colin Hay, Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, legendary folk and country artist Ramblin' Jack Elliott, San Francisco rocker Chuck Prophet and his band The Make Out Quartet, and folk duo The Lucky Valentines.
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Kiley Ford from Rivesville Elementary & Middle School in Marion County as the winner of this year’s Kids Kick Opioids contest.
The contest received more than 2,000 entries from students at 66 middle and elementary schools across West Virginia. The submissions included a mix of drawings, poems and other designs aimed at promoting awareness.
Ford’s winning design features a drawing of an animal-like being with bloodshot eyes, its mouth open and tongue sticking out. A pill is visible inside the mouth, and the words “The truth about opioids isn’t hard to swallow” are written on the being’s tongue.
The design will soon appear in newspapers across West Virginia as the attorney general’s next public service announcement.
The West Virginia Board of Pharmacy, West Virginia Association of School Nurses and the Capitol Police helped judge the contest.
Judges also recognized Evee Matheny from Lenore PK-8 School in Mingo County and Hailey Rogers also from Rivesville Elementary & Middle School as the statewide runners-up. Their designs will appear with Ford’s on the attorney general’s website.
Judges recognized winning entries from 65 students overall. Those designs will be displayed in the State Capitol in the fall.
This year every county in West Virginia, except Cabell County, is set to begin receiving opioid settlement funds, totalling over 400 million dollars from a nearly statewide lawsuit that was won in 2022.
Cabell County, and its largest city, Huntington, decided to bring their own joint lawsuit. They lost that suit in 2022, despite suing with the same claim that was used in successful state and nationwide lawsuits that the pharmaceutical companies had created a “public nuisance.”
Authorities said Joel Smithers headed a drug distribution ring that contributed to the opioid abuse crisis in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.