The most prominent resident of a bird rehabilitation center in Fairmont has died.
Liz Snyder of the West Virginia Raptor Rehabilitation Center says the bald eagle Thunder died Dec. 21 — exactly 21 years after arriving at the center with a gunshot wound that left her unable to survive in the wild.
According to the Times-West Virginian, Thunder was being treated for a respiratory infection before dying in the arms of center director Michael Book, who had taken care of the bird since 1992.
Snyder says Thunder was the center’s most visible symbol. Her picture appeared on the center’s website, and Snyder says that when people thought of the center, they thought of Thunder.
Book says he will always remember Thunder as “proud, intelligent and fearless.”
This New Year’s Eve marks the 44th anniversary of the murder of Union presidential candidate Joseph “Jock” Yablonski.Earlier this month the trigger-man in…
This New Year’s Eve marks the 44th anniversary of the murder of Union presidential candidate Joseph “Jock” Yablonski.
Earlier this month the trigger-man in the 1969 murder, Paul Gilly, petitioned the court asking to be released from prison. But the union believes Gilly should stay behind bars.
Dark time in United Mine Workers of America history
Jock Yablonski, his wife and daughter were murdered December 31, 1969. It was just over a year after the Farmington Disaster, where an explosion killed 78 men, underground.
Paul Rakes is a former coal miner, and soldier. He now is an Associate Professor of History at West Virginia University Institute of Technology.
Rakes grew up in a coal mining community in Southern West Virginia.
“I grew up with injury and death and hearing about it and surrounded by coal mines on a regular basis…but Farmington was so vicious in the explosion itself,” he said.
Outrage in the coalfields
The president of the United Mine Workers of America in 1968 was Tony Boyle. He visited the scene of the Farmington disaster shortly after the explosion. A fact based 1986 TV movie “Act of Vengeance” portrayed his remarks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8sSYVHJkf0
Boyle is quoted in the West Virginia encyclopedia saying, ‘‘As long as we mine coal, there is always this inherent danger. This happens to be one of the better companies, as far as cooperation with our union and safety is concerned.’’
“It was a trying time for our union if you read the history of it was a very trying time,” Mike Caputo, International District 31 Vice President of the United Mine Workers .
Opposition against Boyle mounted in the coalfields.
“Corruption was perceived whether it was real or whether it was just perceived I don’t know the answer to that,” Caputo said, “but you know perception is reality sometimes and Jock Yablonski vowed to change all that.”
A new election
After Yablonski’s death, the federal government launched an investigation of the election and filed suit to have it overturned. In December 1972, the union voted former miner Arnold Miller as president.
Rakes was in his first year underground and looked to his respected father and old timers for guidance in deciding how to vote.
“I do know that all of them were convinced that Boyle had something to do with the death of Yablonski and you know that’s attacking a brother would be the way it’s was thought of,” he said. “It’s a union brother you’re not going to attack them.”
Rakes voted for Miller. Tony Boyle along with gunman Paul Gilly and two others were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Yablonski’s murder. Gilly remains behind bars in Pennsylvania.
A new era
“One thing that shouldn’t be forgotten is the sacrifice that was made by Yablonski himself as well as the 78 miners at Farmington because it changed everything,” Rake said.
The Farmington disaster and Yablonski’s murder sparked initiatives to address problems in coal mine health and safety . The West Virginia legislature passed a black lung compensation law, and in 1969 Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act .
The law dramatically increased federal enforcement powers in coal mines, required fines for all violations, and established criminal penalties for knowing and willful violations among other things.
A national Muslim civil rights organization is calling on state and federal law enforcement to investigate the vandalism of a West Virginia mosque as a…
A national Muslim civil rights organization is calling on state and federal law enforcement to investigate the vandalism of a West Virginia mosque as a possible hate crime.
The Mercer County Sheriff’s Department is looking for vandals after the Islamic Society of Appalachian Region near Princeton was spray painted earlier this week.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, wants the FBI to join investigators.
The graffiti spray-painted on the mosque and its sign made obscene references to “Allah,” the Arabic word for God, and the numbers “666” making reference to the Antichrist among other reportedly graphic terms.
Mosque members say this is the second time the house of worship has been targeted. It was also vandalized following the 9/11 terror attacks.
Dr. Abdul Rashid Piracha, a mosque leader, told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph: “This really hurts all of us because all of us feel that we are part of the American dream.”
A public transit service in southern West Virginia has a new location. An official opening ceremony is planned for Friday morning.
The vehicles of the Bluefield Area Transit, or “B.A.T.” buses, now have a new ‘cave’ to call home… of a sort.
The construction of the administrative and maintenance facilities for BAT is now complete. The public transit program serves Mercer and McDowell counties with routes into Bluefield, Princeton, Athens and Welch.
The new facilities on John Nash Boulevard in Bluefield, are more than 14,000 total square feet, with more than 5,000 square feet serving as administrative offices.
The project cost nearly $3.9 million and was paid for by a federal State of Good Repair Grant administered by the West Virginia Division of Public Transit.
Danhill Construction Company of Gauley Bridge worked on the project.
Jefferson County commissioners are considering banning large music festivals in the county.
County commissioner Dale Manuel tells The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown, Md., that problems at the 2011 All Good Festival in Preston County prompted the commission to look at banning such events.
Organizers of the festival had planned to hold it near Kabletown in Jefferson County in 2014. They notified the commission earlier this month that they were withdrawing those plans because the owners of the property were unable to come to terms on a lease.
Manuel says the 2011 festival cost Preston County taxpayers $250,000. He says there also were traffic problems and festival goers filled three area jails.
Masontown was home for The All Good Festival from 2003 to 2011 before moving to Thornville, Oh. in 2012 and 2013. Festival organizers recently announced they will take a year off in 2014 with plans to return in 2015 at an unspecified venue.
Lead organizers Tim Walther and Junipa Contento say they hope to bring All Good back to the mid-Atlantic region in 2015.
The new movie Out of The Furnace is making waves in theaters this holiday season for its bleak revenge-laden storyline, but most importantly, for its performances. The movie stars six actors who have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards. Christian Bale, known more recently as Batman, Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Willem Defoe, Forest Whitaker, and Sam Shepard. But there’s another male actor in the film that you probably haven’t heard about, at least until now: Morgantown native Bobby Wolfe.
“I just like to entertain, I don’t care if I’m in front of the camera, if I’m on stage, or whatever. If I can make someone laugh, or just have some fun,” he said.
Wolfe left Morgantown in 1988 to go to Nashville Tennessee. He says he wanted to be the next Hank Williams, but that didn’t quite work out. Instead, he started acting in community theatre, and performed in more than 400 performances of a Christmas show. He was also doing commercials and had a role in a movie called Letters from a Wayward Son, with Harry Connick Junior. But the movie wasn’t released, and Wolfe went to Hollywood.
Wolfe eventually scored a big break in 2007 with a role in two episode of the sitcom My Name is Earl, but the writer’s strike kept it from becoming a recurring one.
He decided to move back home to Morgantown and started working with a local community theater company, which took him to new heights. Wolfe won the award for Best Actor at the Southeastern Theater Conference, a few years ago, for his performance in the play I Am My Own Wife. Then as soon as that show ended, he landed a part in Out of the Furnace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClzRVlMhU2E
“It was different than what I had seen my first time on television,” said Wolfe.
“When I was watching My Name is Earl, I was really nervous before they came on. But when I was sitting up there at the premiere, I was just sitting back and saying, ‘Yeah this was right. This was right; this is where I was supposed to be have been!'”
The film is out now in theaters and was shot in the Pittsburgh area but also in the northern panhandle. The house where Woody Harrelson’s character lives is actually just a few miles outside of Weirton. Wolfe says the house had a lot of ambiance that made it perfect for the movie.
“They didn’t have to dress it. This was an old house on some guy’s farm property, it was like nine miles east of Weirton. It had newspapers on the floor, it had old furniture, the wall paper was coming off the wall. It looked like a house where someone would set up a meth lab or whatever,” said Wolfe.
“They had a newspaper, from 1963, they had old books, a couple of them were from the 1860s, it was just an abandoned house. But it was a great house. It was out on a perfect hillside out of the way. Scott said they were just driving out along the road one day, looking for places and they just drove up on it.”
