A national data hub in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle will soon transition away from fossil fuels and toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Located in the Berkeley County community of Kearneysville, the Enterprise Computing Center (ECC) is one of the largest Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data centers, processing data for taxpayers across the United States.
Running the 1,800-kilowatt facility requires major energy usage. New federal funding at the site aims to help it become more energy efficient.
On Oct. 29, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the facility received a $2.2 million grant to begin its transition away from fossil fuels. It marks an early step toward a larger $23 million project that will take place at the site in the coming years.
The federal investment will allow the facility to electrify its heating and hot water systems, and later implement heat pump cooling technologies, according to a DOE project description. The department estimates these changes will “reduce utility energy consumption by 34 percent, saving $1.3 million annually.”
Groundwork for the project was laid in 2020, when the DOE issued the facility a $500,000 grant for a study on the project’s implementation and effects, according to Tyler Harris with the DOE Federal Energy Management Program.
Harris serves as director of the Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies (AFFECT) Program, which selects grant recipients like the ECC and distributes their funding. Since its founding in 2014, Harris said the AFFECT program has led a national effort to help federal facilities pursue cheaper and more efficient energy resources.
“If a building needs fuel oil, natural gas and electricity to keep it running, suddenly you need to back up three different fuel sources,” Harris said. “But if you can turn the whole building so it’s 100 percent electricity, then you only need to back up one source of fuel.”
By streamlining energy consumption, protecting a facility’s energy reserves could be as simple as using batteries or on-site solar panels, Harris said.
Other projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies program include solar panel installations.
Photo Credit: United States Department of Energy
“Changing buildings to all electric is something that the federal government is really pushing, because it really allows agencies to meet their mission long term, and provides resiliency that they need,” he said.
Harris said the $2.2 million grant is “the base project” for a facility-wide energy transition at the ECC. The wider project is privately funded, but receives millions in additional funds for the energy costs it saves by transitioning to a cheaper energy source, he said.
The ECC was one of 67 federal facilities that received AFFECT funding this year around the country. Other projects ranged from wind energy installations to geothermal heat pumps, with the goal of turning sites into “all-electric buildings,” Harris said.
The AFFECT program awarded a total of $149.87 million to projects in 28 states and six international sites this year. It was funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021.
Federal administrators hope it can promote energy security in light of emerging environmental concerns.
“It is imperative that federal facilities are able to operate in the face of increasingly intense extreme weather events,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in the Oct. 29 DOE press release.
While no other projects in West Virginia received funding this year, the DOE Legacy Management Business Center in Morgantown previously received funding for its own study on how to transition the building toward electric energy.
Harris said positive impacts from the ECC project can extend beyond the facility itself.
“Allowing this project to happen in this particular facility will not only improve air quality in the direct area, but it also provides jobs,” he said. “Not only for construction, but long-term maintenance of these new and emerging technologies.”
A timeline for the project’s implementation has not yet been announced. Harris said processing funding can take up to 18 months, and that completing the project could take up to an additional two years.
This year, several closely watched races in West Virginia’s general election come from the fastest growing region of the state, its Eastern Panhandle.
This story is an extended version of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Election Day coverage. To access our full slate of stories, visit our 2024 general election live blog at this link.
This year, several closely watched races in West Virginia’s general election come from the fastest growing region of the state, its Eastern Panhandle.
The area has a significant Republican majority. But some residents on the left hope a growing influx of newcomers to the state could help swing local elections in the Democratic Party’s favor.
Sen. Patricia Rucker, the Republican incumbent from Jefferson County, faces a challenge from Democrat John Doyle, a former state lawmaker who spent 16 years total representing the county in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
Meanwhile, some House seats have also fallen into partisan contention. This includes House District 100 in Jefferson County, where incumbent Del. Bill Ridenour faces a challenge from Democratic opponent Maria Russo.
It also includes the currently vacant House District 97 in Berkeley and Jefferson counties. The seat is sought after by Jefferson County native Lucia Valentine, a Democrat, and Marylander-turned-Mountain State resident Chris Anders, a Republican.
The Berkeley County race is what brought Shepherdstown resident Than Hitt to the curb of Asbury United Methodist Church on Tuesday. The church served as a polling location for Shepherdstown residents, and Hitt waved to drivers while sporting a shirt and sign that read “Vote Valentine.”
Hitt said he thinks Valentine is a better fit for the area. He specifically likes her goals of reducing chemical contamination in local waterways, and securing locality pay for Eastern Panhandle teachers.
Locality pay weights an educator’s salary against the local cost of living, which Hitt said could help teachers in higher-cost areas like the Eastern Panhandle.
“She graduated from Shepherd University. She’s from here,” Hitt said. “She’s lived it, so that’s why she understands what’s at stake.”
This year, Shepherdstown resident Stewart Acuff voted “all Democratic everywhere.” Like Hitt, he said local candidates on the left better addressed key issues on his mind, like protecting the environment, supporting women’s rights and addressing racism.
Stewart Acoff, a resident of Shepherdstown, said he voted Democrat across his entire ballot during the Nov. 5 general election.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“It’s the Republicans on the county council who now want to cover this green landscape with tracked housing and industrial solar,” Acuff said. “It was the Republicans in Jefferson County who jammed Rockwool down our throats.”
Acuff said his politics are influenced by his values as a Christian. He said that is why he voted for John Doyle to represent his Senate district and Maria Russo to represent his House district. Acuff also said he supports Valentine’s candidacy for nearby House District 97.
“As long as people like Jim Justice and Patrick Morrisey try to run the state like a coal operator — like they make all the decisions and they get all the money — then West Virginia is going to be stuck in poverty,” Acuff said.
Shepherdstown resident Karene Motivans said she was excited to vote for “youthful, energetic new candidates” for local office.
But Motivans said she also wanted to cast a vote against ideas expressed by candidates on the right, like anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant sentiment.
“I come from parents that are immigrants. It makes me emotional,” she said. “They add so much to our country.”
Motivans believes population growth in the state’s Eastern Panhandle, particularly from more liberal urban areas, could fuel a Democratic flip in places like Jefferson County.
“A lot of people are coming into the state from other places, seeing this as a great bedroom community for their jobs in D.C., and coming with their liberal outlook,” Motivans said. “I think we should have more people like that.”
Kirsten Pollard is a Shepherd University student who commutes to campus from Pennsylvania. She could not vote in West Virginia’s general election, but said the college campus brings more political engagement to the area.
“I can tell in my classes that people are very outspoken about who they feel they want to win, and I really support that,” Pollard said.
No Republican voters agreed to speak to West Virginia Public Broadcasting in Shepherdstown on Election Day.
But some residents supporting a Republican ticket spoke with the newsroom last week during early voting. They said they want candidates who can minimize government spending, reduce property costs, decrease the local cost of living and protect freedom of speech.
For them, local Republican candidates like Rucker, Ridenour and Anders better fit that bill.
North Jefferson Elementary School served as a polling location during West Virginia’s 2024 general election.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
West Virginia was once a Democratic stronghold. But in the past decade, the state has grown increasingly red.
Between December 2016 and October 2024, Democratic Party enrollment in West Virginia fell by more than 37 percent, according to voter registration data from the secretary of state’s office.
Today, Republicans in the Mountain State outnumber Democrats by more than 100,000. Residents have different ideas of what caused that decline.
Brady Boccucci, an early voter from Martinsburg, thinks it has something to do with the years-long decrease in union membership, since unions long received support from the Democratic Party.
“I think the decline of unionization in West Virginia has led towards more people registering Republican,” Boccucci said.
In the early 1980s, about one in five American workers was backed by a union, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Today, that figure sits closer to one in ten.
Janel Clement of Hedgesville, Berkeley County, was registered as a Republican earlier in life. But today she is a registered Democrat, and said that political messaging from the party of her youth has pushed her away from voting for candidates on the right.
“This party today bears no resemblance to the Republican Party of my youth,” she said.
The West Virginia Democratic Party and its chair, Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, did not respond to multiple phone call and email requests for comment on this story.
Between 2016 and 2024, Republican party registration has also increased by roughly 25 percent. And since 2023, ten additional West Virginia counties flipped from blue to red, with Republican registration now leading in 47 counties total.
Frank DeStefano of Charles Town said this could be because Republicans like him feel alienated by the Democratic Party’s messaging.
“The situation is so bad now,” he said. “When you start bullying one team and calling them Hitler and calling them all kinds of – that's not helping me.”
Other political groups, like the Libertarian and Mountain parties, have also seen modest gains. Jessica Geiermann of Shepherdstown said that partisan politics can push moderate voters away from major-party affiliation.
“I'm a registered libertarian. I think it's because sometimes, with our bipartisan [system] not everybody fits into one mold,” she said. “So I think some of the third parties might be becoming more appealing to people.”
Political leaders in the state’s Republican Party are excited by these trends. Chairman Matt Herridge said they suggest that his party reflects the values of the state better than the Democratic party.
“I think that a lot of West Virginians have always, whether Democrat or Republican, hold those values of faith, family and freedom, and they just feel that their party has left them,” Herridge said.
Beyond just messaging, Herridge said efforts to transition away from coal, an industry with a historically major presence in the state, lost long-time loyalty to the Democratic Party in West Virginia.
Herridge noted that changes in affiliation haven’t been uniform across the state’s landscape. He said upticks in Republican registration have been more pronounced in rural areas, and that several urban areas in the state still lean blue.
But he thinks current trends suggest more West Virginia voters might begin to identify with his party’s mission.
“It is on us, I think, to try to be as big tent as we can,” Herridge said. “Certainly we’re getting more and more optimistic as we get closer to Nov. 5.”
The Nov. 5 general election is just a few days away. As the state prepares for Election Day, a growing number of West Virginians have already cast their ballots at local early voting sites.
As of Thursday, that included more than 33,000 residents of Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties, according to the most recent preliminary data available through the secretary of state’s office.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting traveled to early voting locations in each of the three counties and spoke with roughly one dozen residents. Across the board, the Eastern Panhandle early voters agreed this year’s election is important, but differed in their reasoning why.
Partisan Divides
Democratic voters like Maria Beckman, a resident of the Jefferson County town of Bolivar, worry about growing political polarization in the United States today.
She said there can be “societal pressure” to vote red in West Virginia, but that the success of the Democratic Party during this year’s election is key to the “future of democracy.”
We asked Eastern Panhandle voters:
What’s the biggest issue on your mind this election?
“The character of the Republican presidential candidate is at issue here. I think to support him means we’ve lost our soul,” Beckman said. “I want to cast a vote against tyranny and dictatorship, and for somebody who is hopeful and intelligent. By that, I mean I want to support Kamala Harris.”
Janel Clement, a contractor from Hedgesville, was registered as a Republican earlier in life. But today she votes as a Democrat, and said she hardly recognizes the party she left behind.
For her, protecting democracy means “free and fair elections,” “people who accept the results of the election” and “no riots at the Capitol or otherwise.” She wants to see those values reflected in the candidate she votes for, too.
“It is basic and fundamental to the office of the presidency: Respect the Constitution,” Clement said.
Regardless of party, most early voters who spoke to West Virginia Public Broadcasting agreed that recent partisan divides have made politics more contentious.
But Republican voters like Frank DeStefano of Charles Town say they feel alienated by messaging from the Democratic Party.
“Whether it’s a presidential election or even just a local election, always vote,” said Martinsburg resident Brady Boccucci. “You can’t really complain unless you actually get out there and vote.”
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
DeStefano waited outside the Jefferson County Courthouse annex this week alongside his son Arthur, also a Republican voter. DeStefano said Democratic politicians portray Republicans and moderates in an unfair light.
“It’s just, the situation is so bad now,” he said. “When you start bullying one team and calling them Hitler and calling them all kinds of – that’s not helping me.”
Many early voters agreed that their votes this year would be influenced by national political conversations. Clement said she was “not really interested in local elections this year,” but that divisions between the two major parties led her to “just vote straight D.”
“I don’t trust Republicans anymore,” she said.
Local Issues
Most early voters who spoke to West Virginia Public Broadcasting agreed that they felt more informed about national issues than local candidates or statewide ballot measures. But some said particular issues affecting the local community were top of mind this election season.
Arthur DeStefano said high property taxes and cost of living in the Eastern Panhandle have pushed him toward fiscal conservatism and candidates on the right.
Urban: “What’s bringing me out here is about our school excess levy. … There’s very little accountability for where the money goes, and it keeps rising because there’s no cap.”
Beckman: “I want to support Kamala Harris for president, and I also want to vote in favor of the school levy.”
Boccucci: “I just think it’s important no matter what the election, whether it’s a presidential election or even just a local election, to always vote.”
DeStefano:“I want to get our America back to the way it was. … I work three jobs just to be able to pay our bills, and our bills are still skyrocketing.”
“I work three jobs just to be able to pay our bills, and our bills are still skyrocketing,” he said.
Other residents expressed concerns over government spending, too. Richard Urban of Shannondale, picketed near the Jefferson County Courthouse to discourage early voters from supporting a local amendment that would increase school funding by increasing a levy on real estate and personal property taxes in the county.
“There’s very little accountability for where the money goes, and it keeps rising because there’s no cap,” he said.
Urban self-identified as an independent voter. But he wore a Make America Great Again hat while picketing, and said his views often align with candidates on the right.
Between local and national elections, Urban said he would vote for candidates who represent fiscal conservatism, freedom of speech, gun rights and vaccine choice.
For him, this included Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, who is currently facing a Democratic challenge from former state lawmaker John Doyle in the state’s easternmost West Virginia Senate district.
“In other words, less government and more personal responsibility and freedom,” he said.
Richard Urban, an independent voter from the community of Shannondale, said his biggest concern this election is a school levy that would raise taxes in Jefferson County.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
But Jefferson County Democratic voters like Beckman view the local election from a different angle. Beckman said Rucker is a “fine person,” but that Doyle “has the right policy positions” to earn her vote this year.
Doyle “will support most everyday West Virginians, like me,” she said.
Beckman also said she is in favor of increasing the local school levy to add more funding to the county’s public school system. Ultimately, she said the success of ballot measures and policies like these lie in the hands of local Democratic leadership.
“It’s up to the Democratic Party to show those voters that Democratic party platforms actually do support West Virginians,” she said. “I hope I do see that in my lifetime.”
As of Oct. 31, nearly 245,000 West Virginians had cast their votes through early voting, and nearly 20,000 had returned absentee ballots, according to preliminary data from the secretary of state’s office.
With the Nov. 5 general election fast approaching, that means nearly 950,000 registered voters in the state are left to vote, across the Eastern Panhandle and beyond.
For more information on voting in West Virginia, visit the secretary of state’s voter dashboard at GoVoteWV.com.
Berkeley County officials are excited by recent population growth. But they say preparing for newcomers means expanding existing infrastructure, like water and wastewater systems.
West Virginia has long struggled with population decline, but its easternmost region has proved an exception. Last year, five counties in the area saw population growth — among just eight counties in the state.
Berkeley County experienced the biggest jump. Between July 2022 and July 2023, the county population grew by 2.37 percent, with more than 3,000 new residents moving in.
Local officials are excited by these numbers. But they say preparing for newcomers means expanding existing infrastructure, like water and wastewater systems.
Officials took a step toward that goal Thursday, with a groundbreaking ceremony in the unincorporated community of Bunker Hill. Located about 12 miles south of Martinsburg, the area will soon house a new $79 million water treatment plant servicing the southern portion of the county.
Engineers on the project expect to complete the new plant in three years. By then, the county will need to supply an additional 900,000 gallons of water to keep up with demand, according to Jeremey Hise, vice president of the engineering firm leading the project, Hazen and Sawyer.
“A lot of these projects are in need in a very timely manner,” Hise said in a speech during the ceremony.
Bunker Hill already has a water treatment plant. But it was built in 1958 and has reached its “life expectancy,” according to Jim Ouellet, executive director of the Berkeley County Water District.
“We’re going to replace it and, at the same time, we’re going to add additional capacity,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., reviews plans for the new water treatment plant in Bunker Hill.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
County administrators say Bunker Hill’s current water treatment plant, pictured in part here, needs replacement.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
With the site’s expansion, Berkeley County will treat an additional 6 million gallons of water per day. Its storage capacity will increase from 400,000 gallons to 2 million.
In 2023, Ouellet said the county added an average of 3.3 water meter connections per day. He said this shows the importance of increasing supply.
“We have great enthusiasm from developers who have desired to be here. We have businesses coming to the community,” Ouellet said. “Our objective is to simply create and maintain the necessary infrastructure so that, as these opportunities come along, we’ll be positioned to supply them with the water they need.”
Ouellet said the Bunker Hill site is not the only thing in the works. On the county’s northern end, officials aim to increase the capacity of a water plant fed by the Potomac River from 6 million gallons of water per day to 10 million.
The Bunker Hill project is located in the southernmost part of the county. By expanding water systems on both sides of the county, Ouellet said administrators can more easily serve residents across the region.
“Obviously, you don’t want to move water further than you have to. It’s very heavy,” he said. “The more we have down here, the less we have to move from up north further south. So, it always works in concert with each other.”
United States Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and West Virginia Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, delivered remarks during the event. They voiced their support for the project, and hopes for future development projects in the Eastern Panhandle.
The Berkeley County Public Service District provides water to the greater Berkeley County area.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Funding for the project came from a mix of sources.
According to Ouellet, the Berkeley County Water District borrowed roughly $50 million from the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which provides money to water and wastewater construction, upgrade and expansion efforts. The fund is administered by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Water and Waste Management.
Ouellet said the West Virginia Water Development Authority (WDA) provided the project an additional grant of roughly $25 million. The WDA coordinates loans and financing for local water and wastewater facilities across the state.
Plus, the United States Environmental Protection Agency allocated $3 million to the project following a congressional spending request from Capito.
“Clean water is absolutely essential for drinking and for the environmental health of our community,” Capito told West Virginia Public Broadcasting after the ceremony.
Capito said utilities like water factor into the decision to move to West Virginia for prospective residents and businesses. Plus, she said improving water resources also benefits people already here.
“I know this is an expanding area. There’s more jobs. There’s more housing,” Capito said. “If you don’t have the availability of clean water, drinking water and wastewater facilities, you’re not going to be able to grow.”
Ouellet said Berkeley County officials are grateful for the growth they have already experienced, and hope infrastructure improvements keep current trends going.
“We’re fortunate to have a community that continues to prosper,” he said. “And in any community, in any place, the most important public health component is a viable water system.”
North Raleigh Street funnels traffic from downtown Martinsburg to U.S. Route 11. But peel onto a half-paven path near the train tracks and you will find pops of color peeking through the overgrowth.
For more than a decade, skateboarders walked this route, boards in tow, to reach the local skate spot. The city’s indoor skating venue had closed due to financial concerns in 2013, just four years into operation. Skaters were not ready to put down their boards, so they scouted out the abandoned lot uptown.
And Martinsburg’s “do-it-yourself” skatepark was born.
Local skaters regularly gathered on the empty stretch of pavement, and reached an understanding with its property owner to keep the space clean and trouble free. Then came the rails and hand-poured concrete ramps, all on their own dime.
More than ten years later, the DIY park is a sight to behold, with sprawling spray-paint murals and features of all kinds. Just one thing is missing: the skaters.
A recent change in the property’s ownership led the park to fall out of use. But it has also reinvigorated county-wide calls for something permanent.
A skate scene, but no skatepark
Many of Mark Peacemaker’s early skateboarding experiences began with a carpool; his buddies piling gear into minivans and bumping elbows in the backseat.
Parents took turns driving them to skating venues in Frederick, a city in Maryland about forty miles east of his hometown. The trips were fun, but today they remind Peacemaker of how far he had to travel to access action sports as a preteen in Martinsburg.
“Growing up in the panhandle of West Virginia at the time I did, there weren’t as many amenities around,” he said.
Back in the 2000s, Peacemaker said skaters were viewed as trouble, a sentiment that traces back decades.
In 1991, the City of Martinsburg banned skateboarding on public property. This meant police could snatch boards from skaters doing tricks in the local park, or nail them with fines just for riding down the street.
An old sign outside Martinsburg’s city offices threatens police action against skateboarders.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles sits in his office.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“I ended up with some stuff on my record that really didn’t help me out, and took some other friends of mine in some bad directions,” he said. “The first strike of that was skating in public places.”
When the city skatepark closed in 2013, Peacemaker and his friends said gathering someplace else seemed obvious. They did not necessarily have bigger plans in mind.
“We were all kids, so I think everyone within the scene just congregated back there and organically started to make stuff to skate on,” he said.
But news about the spot spread, giving rise to a whole community of DIY skaters, like those that have popped up around the world in areas without public skate spots. From a run-down tennis court in Maryland to an abandoned strip mall in Texas, skaters far and wide have converted derelict urban spaces into grassroots parks.
Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles said the local DIY skaters never caused problems, and were not the city’s responsibility to monitor.
“It didn’t affect us one way or another, because the liability wasn’t falling on us,” he said. “The liability was falling on the individual that was allowing them to do that.”
The DIY skatepark became well known in the local community, hosting recurring park cleanups and competitions called “skate jams.” The events brought out dozens of community members, at times even including Mayor Knowles.
“Watching what they’ve been doing over there at the DIY, they made some really great progress,” he said. “But they didn’t own the property.”
For Knowles, a lack of formal ownership over the skatepark put its long-term viability into question. When a new owner bought the property last year, the city got an answer.
Under new ownership
In November 2023, Tim Pool, an online conservative commentator based in Harpers Ferry, purchased the DIY skatepark property.
This September, Pool made national headlines when the Justice Department said a company he was affiliated with had taken money from Russian state media to spread propaganda. Pool has stated he was unaware of any such scheme.
Back in West Virginia, Pool’s profile was growing, too. He and skatepark regulars disagreed about how the spot was used, but no Martinsburg skaters who spoke to West Virginia Public Broadcasting for this story agreed to discuss the situation.
Regardless, the fallout again left Martinsburg residents with nowhere to skate. Knowles said he is unsure where they ended up.
“I don’t know where anybody is going at this point. I’m not seeing a huge running, within the city, of people on skateboards,” he said. “So they’re going somewhere. They’re not coming to the city of Martinsburg right now.”
Recurring events at the Martinsburg DIY skatepark brought dozens of skaters to West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The DIY park has largely fallen into disuse since its purchase by a new property owner in November 2023.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
But Peacemaker said he knows where they went: back to out-of-state venues in Maryland and Virginia, like the ones he frequented growing up. Skaters in the Eastern Panhandle again must decide between driving tens of miles out of the city or simply putting away their boards.
“There’s tons of parks around, man. Martinsburg’s kind of like that center point that doesn’t have one,” Peacemaker said.
Peacemaker pointed to the Hagerstown Skatepark, a Maryland venue about 25 miles from downtown Martinsburg, as a vision of what local skaters want for their own community: a permanent place to skate, funded by local officials. And their idea is gaining traction.
Pushing for something permanent
Last month, the Martinsburg City Council revoked their no-skateboarding ordinance after three decades.
Mayor Knowles and Joe Burton, executive director of Martinsburg-Berkeley County Parks & Recreation, acknowledged that skateboarders have historically been seen as troublesome by some members of the community because of their ties to an alternative scene.
“Skateboarders are their own type of people. They dress differently, they talk differently and their activities are a little different than other people’s,” Knowles said. “People just identify individuals by what they see, not what they know. So they see something different. They don’t like it.”
But Burton said officials in the Eastern Panhandle today think recreational activities like skateboarding can keep kids safe.
“With drug use or kids getting in different kinds of trouble, everything suggests that more activities help those problems. They don’t make it worse,” he said. “So more safe, recreational activities are a good thing to add to the community.”
Joshua McCormick, another Martinsburg DIY skater, agrees. He said there is something meditative in the rhythm of the sport.
“You’re constantly falling. You’re falling, but you don’t give up,” he said. “It’s all worth it for that little bit of joy of landing a trick and having your homies shout you out and cheer for you.”
Martinsburg residents Joshua McCormick and Mark Peacemaker stand with their boards at the Hagerstown Skatepark.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
McCormick performs a trick at the Hagerstown Skatepark, located about 25 miles away from Martinsburg in western Maryland.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Knowles and Burton said the city and county governments are actively looking to secure property and funding to build a public skatepark for the local community. The project follows years of advocacy from people like Peacemaker, who have spoken to local officials about the benefits of increasing access to recreational opportunities like skateboarding.
Knowles said they have identified a potential location for the skatepark “close to the downtown corridor on the outskirts of our trail system,” but that a place has not been finalized. The project will be publicly funded by both the city and county governments, he said.
“It’s going to be a perfect addition, the one that does come to fruition,” Knowles said. “It’s going to happen, we just have to make sure we have the right land, and we have to make sure about the finances.”
The Martinsburg and Berkeley County governments have also not finalized a timeline for the park’s construction, but said they are in conversation with Peacemaker and other local skaters for the project.
McCormick said skaters are willing to travel far distances for a skatepark, which means the project could increase local tourism, too.
“We had people from Baltimore, Frederick — all over the quad-state area come to our little DIY,” he said. “Another public park in the area would be a great thing.”
It could be a while before a permanent park is actually up and running, but Peacemaker and McCormick say knowing one is coming is a relief. The DIY spot had charm, but did not supplant the community’s practical need for a public, government-funded park, they said.
For now, the skaters are glad they will not have to pour time, money and more concrete into the DIY skatepark.
“We’re finally going to have something new in a really beautiful setting that’s going to be personalized and public and open for everyone,” Peacemaker said. “It’s a safe space that’s legal, and it’s never gonna go away.”
