Tag: Arts & Culture

Parents to Learn How to Spearhead Local School Initiatives

Education officials are planning a conference this fall to help parents learn how to lead successful initiatives in their local schools.Students raising their hands

The program will be called Families Leading Change, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported earlier this week.

The conference will teach parents and guardians how to start local initiatives such as promoting fatherhood engagement and creating strong school wellness teams, said Charlotte Norris, the program’s director.

“We want to make sure parents are equipped and understand all the things they can have a voice in, and I think having them involved in schools, walking through those doors, not being intimidated — they can change the educational environment,” Norris said.

Thanks to the Pennsylvania-based Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the program currently has a $50,000 pot for mini-grants to support such ideas, Norris said. The grants range from $500 to $2,000 each.

“(Parents) can apply to replicate some of the things we’ve identified or they can come up with their own great ideas,” Norris said.

Those interested in receiving grants will have to attend the fall conference, where attendees will learn leadership skills and develop plans they can implement, Norris said. Officials have not yet set the location and time for the fall conference.

The program was spearheaded by the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition, part of the Our Children, Our Future anti-child-poverty campaign.

Houston Texans to Hold Training Camp at Greenbrier

The Texans will hold their 2017 training camp at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

It will be the first time the Texans will hold training camp offsite after spending the last 15 seasons at the Houston Methodist Training Center.

The resort has a Sports Performance Center that includes two grass fields, one artificial surface field and a training facility. It recently underwent a $250 million restoration.

The New Orleans Saints held their training camp at The Greenbrier for the last three years (2014-16) amid reports they will not return this offseason.

Two Bakers Document The Women Who Inspired Them in New Book

Have you ever heard of Salt Rising Bread? Legend has it this traditional Appalachian food, which uses no yeast, was created by pioneers in West Virginia who had very few ingredients.

Bakers Susan Brown and Jenny Bardwell have been working to document the recipes and stories of salt sising bread over the past few years.

Their new book is called Salt Rising Bread: Recipes and Heartfelt Stories of a Nearly Lost Appalachian Tradition. In this interview, they share the stories of the women who taught them to make salt rising bread and the reasons they believe this traditional bread is still worth baking.

Making homemade bread does take a lot of time, admits Susan Brown. But it’s worth the hours of labor “because one of the things that happens when you bake something yourself and serve it to your friends and family [is] you start creating stories.”

'You Can't Hurt Anything That Can't Be Repaired'- W.Va. Historian, Musician Jim Costa

Old time musician Jim Costa gave a performance at the West Virginia Humanities Council Wednesday night. It was part of the West Virginia Folklife Program.

Among his many achievements, Costa was in the film Matewan back in 1987. Over his lifetime he’s collected enough historic instruments, clocks, hatchets and other tools to fill a small museum.

Credit Zoe van Buren
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Variations of apple butter churners from Jim’s Collection

26-year-old folklorist Zoe van Buren, from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, spent her summer last year documenting Costa’s legacy.

“And I think that actually, what he’s accomplished is more than what a single museum can do,” said van Buren, a native of New York City.  She  says she’s drawn to learning about the way people used to build buildings, cook food, and play music in years past.

“Tradition is always about the next generation, not just about the last one,” she said. “It doesn’t mean just that from the past, it’s the way that we interpret and use the past to guide us into the future.”

One of the things that impressed her the most about Jim Costa was his skill at fixing old things, like clocks and instruments.

“You can’t hurt anything that can’t be repaired,” Costa said during Wednesday night’s presentation.

Plans Unveiled for Space Beneath Charleston's I-64 Overpass

A Charleston group is proposing development opportunities for the space beneath the Interstate 64 overpass near downtown Charleston.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that last week, Charleston Main Streets West Side program director Steven Romano presented to the Strong Neighborhood Task Force a set of conceptual renderings for Gallery 64, a long-term project to transform the area into a hub for various public uses.

Romano says possibilities include RV parking, rain gardens, sports courts and a farmers’ market. Lighting would be increased in the area through art installations.

Romano says a path could be built between two areas that aren’t currently connected: Washington Street and Kanawha Boulevard.

City planners don’t yet have a timeline for construction. Romano says the next step is making the public aware of Gallery 64.

McElroy Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 List

Marshall Graduate and Huntington Native Griffin McElroy has been named to Forbes 30 under 30 list for media for 2017. The 29-year-old McElroy was chosen for his work as the founding editor of Polygon, Vox’s video game website as well as weekly podcasts. 

One of those podcasts, My Brother My Brother and Me is part of the Maximum Fun podcast network. It’s an advice podcast, with less than serious answers. It received over 3.5M streams in November. Griffin and the McElroy brothers, Justin and Travis, have also developed the podcast into an online television show for the NBCUniversal online comedy network called Seeso. McElroy joins Clark Davis on Skype for this interview from Austin, Texas.

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