An employee at one of Berkshire Hathaway’s latest big acquisitions won $100,000 by correctly picking the winners of the first 29 games of the NCAA basketball tournament’s opening rounds.
Warren Buffett’s company said Monday that a welder for Precision Castparts, Dwayne Johnson, won the contest that was open to Berkshire’s more than 350,000 employees.
The 36-year-old winner who lives in West Virginia came just short of qualifying for a $1 million prize if he had picked all 32 games of the opening weekend correctly.
Buffett plans to continue the contest, and he expects there will be million-dollar winners occasionally.
There were 96,108 entrants in the contest this year.
Berkshire owns more than 90 companies, including Geico insurance, BNSF railroad, See’s Candy and Fruit of the Loom.
The 12th annual state Archery in the Schools Tournament is set for this week.The Division of Natural Resources says in a news release the tournament will…
The 12th annual state Archery in the Schools Tournament is set for this week.
The Division of Natural Resources says in a news release the tournament will be held Saturday at the Charleston Civic Center. Students from 51 schools and groups will compete.
Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 6 to 17. Younger children get in free.
Thousands of students have been introduced to archery as part of their physical education classes since the program’s inception in 2004. The tournament is open to schools that received Division of Natural Resources-sponsored training.
West Virginia entered the Big 12 women’s tournament on the bubble for an NCAA bid. It left it with an automatic berth.
Tynice Martin scored 32 points, helping the Mountaineers beat No. 2 Baylor 77-66 in the Big 12 final on Monday night.
West Virginia last won a conference tournament in 1989, when it was part of the Atlantic 10. There was no reason to believe things would change this year, not with West Virginia limping into the tournament with five losses in its previous nine games.
The Mountaineers turned it around at Chesapeake Energy Arena. They advanced to the final with Top 25 victories over Oklahoma and Texas, and West Virginia coach Mike Carey saw no reason to stop there.
“They knew coming down here that we had to win at least one, two games (to get an NCAA bid), and I told ’em after the second game, hell, we might as well win the third one since we’re here,” he said. “And they came out and played extremely hard and continued to play defense the whole time.”
Martin, a sophomore guard, set a tournament record for most points in a championship game and was named the most outstanding player. She averaged 27.3 points in three games, the third-highest average in tournament history.
“It feels amazing to average what I averaged this tournament,” Martin said. “But when you have good practices and when you have my teammates behind me saying, ‘Nobody can guard you,’ and my coach saying, ‘Attack them,’ you have no choice but to do what they say and to believe in yourself.”
Teana Muldrow added 15 points for West Virginia (23-10).
Kalani Brown scored 19 points and Kristy Wallace had 17 points and nine rebounds for Baylor (30-3), which had won the last six conference tournaments.
The Lady Bears had won seven in a row against West Virginia, but the Mountaineers lost by just six at Baylor on Feb. 6 in their previous meeting and played with confidence from the start in the final.
Martin scored 11 points in the first quarter to help West Virginia take a 22-14 lead. West Virginia’s biggest lead was 21 points in the third quarter.
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey was pleased that the Lady Bears cut it to six in the fourth quarter, but she wished her team didn’t wait so long to turn up the intensity.
“If you play with that sense of urgency when the game started and you get every loose ball and you’re productive the first five minutes of the game, you might not have lost,” she said.
BIG PICTURE
West Virginia: The Mountaineers had fallen out of the Top 25, but they now are in position to gain a high seed.
Baylor: The Lady Bears probably have done enough to remain a top seed in the tournament. Their body of work is impressive, including 11 wins over ranked teams. Baylor had scored at least 86 points in its four previous games, including a 103-64 win over Oklahoma.
QUOTABLE
Mulkey, on not being able to overcome the Mountaineers after cutting the deficit to six: “You’re fatigued at that point. You’re leaving it all — listen, I am excited and I expected them to __ well, I better use a better word than ‘fight.’ I expected them to play hard. That’s all we know.”
STAT LINES
Baylor’s reserves went scoreless on 0-for-7 shooting.
“Some people need to do some soul searching on our bench when they go in a game,” Mulkey said. “Is the moment too big for you, or can you put on your big girl panties and play in a game like this.”
UP NEXT
West Virginia and Baylor await their seeds and opponents for the NCAA Tournament.
Bishop Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston has released a letter elaborating on the decision to close Bishop Donahue High School at the end of the academic year.
In a letter published Thursday in The Intelligencer of Wheeling, Bransfield said issues that led to the decision to close the school included shrinking enrollment and the resulting financial burden to the diocese.
He said the funds raised by supporters since the decision was announced would fail to cover the cost of even a single pay period.
Save Bishop Donahue Foundation committee member Dana Mele expressed disappointment in the letter.
In February, the foundation appealed the diocese’s decision to close the school. Mele says the appeal will be going to church leadership in Rome by March 8.
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston officials haven’t commented.
When the students at North Elementary School in Morgantown were called to a surprise assembly Thursday morning, they had no idea that one of them – a second grade student named Tarannom Rajaee – had won the statewide Doodle 4 Google contest.
The annual competition challenges grade-school students nationwide to design a doodle, or a fun take of the Google logo. This year’s contest theme was “What I see for the future.” Tarannom’s doodle depicts life on Mars.
“It’s unexplored,” she said. “People can go on Mars and do new discoveries to learn more about Mars and see if once Mars had water or a breathable atmosphere, something.”
Credit Charles Ryan Associates
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Charles Ryan Associates
Tarannom Rajaee reacts to the announcement that she won the statewide Doodle 4 Google contest.
Google notified Tarannom’s parents and her school more than a month ago – but instructed them to keep it a secret from Tarannom until the assembly, where Senator Shelly Moore Capito and two employees from Google announced her success.
“It was hard for us to keep this secret, but we tried until today,” said Mehdi Rajaee, Tarannom’s father. “We just (stood) outside of the gym, just looking for Tarannom, because if she saw us she would figure out what was going on. It’s kind of hard.”
Tarannom’s mother Zahra Abbasi said she was proud of Tarannom and not at all surprised that her daughter has talent. In fact, Abbasi said Tarannom can create art even better than what she drew for Google.
“I know she could do better than this. She uses (her) imagination very well,” Abbasi said. “She is (talented).”
As the statewide winner, Tarannom won a tablet computer and a t-shirt featuring her design. Her doodle will now compete at the national level. The national winner is selected partially by a public vote, and the winning doodle will be featured on google.com for one day.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Greenbrier County native Troy Clemons has been named West Virginia University’s mascot for another year.
Clemons beat out three other finalists. His selection by a committee of faculty, staff and students was announced at the WVU men’s basketball game with Texas on Monday night.The other Mountaineer Mascot finalists were Trevor Kiess, of Elkins, Jesse Lackey, of Salem, and Savannah Lusk, of Covel.
Kiess will be asked to take the role as alternate Mountaineer Mascot.
Credit West Virginia University
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West Virginia University
The 2017 WVU Mountaineer Mascot finalists, from left — Jesse Lackey, Trevor Kiess, Savannah Lusk and Troy Clemons.
According to a WVU press release, Clemons is the 64th Mountaineer Mascot and is a graduate student majoring in business administration from Maxwelton. A recipient of the PROMISE and WVU Mountaineer scholarships, he earned his bachelor’s degree in sport management from the WVU College of Physical Activity and Sport Science in May of 2016.
“It is a huge honor to represent the University and West Virginia, my home, as the mascot for another year,” Clemons said in the release. “My love and appreciation for Mountaineers everywhere has only grown over the past year and I look forward to seeing what the upcoming year will bring.”
