Charleston Civic Center Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Student Success Summit Focuses On Being ‘Career-Ready’

Hundreds of teachers from across the state will gather in Charleston this week – to learn how to incorporate the concept of being “career-ready” into their lesson plans.

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, the West Virginia Community and Technical College System, and the West Virginia Department of Education will host this year’s West Virginia Student Success Summit. This is a collaborative event focusing on creating seamless and supportive lifelong learning systems for the state’s students.

The 2023 theme is “Creating a Career-Ready West Virginia.” The plan is to focus on forging student pathways to meet the demand of future job markets.

Sarah Tucker is West Virginia’s chancellor of higher education for the state. She said the summit is meant to refresh teachers on the state’s new educational goals.

“It’s really an opportunity for them to have a couple of days to workshop things that are working well in their classrooms,” Tucker said. “To take a step back and think differently about the work that they’re doing. This one is particularly focused on becoming career ready.”

She said many students are not aware of the state’s many new economic development job prospects, such as Nucor Steel and Form Energy. She hopes this summit will help teachers enhance their educational message.

“Our students don’t know about them,” Tucker said. “They don’t have any idea. They are concerned that staying in West Virginia will mean that they don’t have very many prospects, and the exact opposite is true right now. And so how do we get that message across to them? How do we arm them with that information so that they know that they can talk with their students about all of these opportunities and possibilities that are happening in our state right now?”

Participants will include educators, counselors and administrators from the pre-school, elementary, secondary and postsecondary education systems; workforce professionals; business and community leaders and military personnel.

Additionally, there will be a student showcase in the afternoon on the first day of the summit where student organizations will demonstrate innovative career-driven projects and programs.

The Student Success Summit runs Wednesday and Thursday at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Featured Authors For 2022 West Virginia Book Festival Announced

The 2020 West Virginia Book Festival will be held on October 21 and 22 and will feature presentations from bestselling national authors, local and regional authors, writing workshops, family activities, a literary marketplace, and the annual Used Book Sale.

A reader’s favorite is returning to the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center this fall. In-person activities have been canceled the last few years because of the pandemic.

This year’s featured speakers will be:

New York Times bestselling fantasy author V.E. Schwab;
mystery novelist C.J. Box;
novelist Elin Hilderbrand;
author, columnist, and public speaker Deesha Philyaw;
and children’s author and illustrator Marc Brown.

Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a Young Adult vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix.

C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 30 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. Over ten million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages. Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small-town newspaper reporter and editor, and he owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie.

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of twenty-eight novels, including the forthcoming The Hotel Nantucket (June 14, 2022). Elin is the proud mother of three, a dedicated Peloton rider, an aspiring book influencer, and an enthusiastic at-home cook (follow her on Instagram @elinhilderbrand to watch her Cringe Cooking Show). She is also a seven-year breast cancer survivor.

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church, and is being adapted for television by HBO Max. Deesha is also a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and will be the 2022-2023 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Marc Brown is one of the most prominent names in children’s literature. Author of the bestselling Arthur books, as well as the creator of the six-time Emmy Award–winning animated Arthur series on PBS (with 25 Emmy nominations), Brown is a household name and has been entertaining generations of young readers with his relatable stories featuring Arthur the Aardvark. Over 65 million copies of his Arthur books have been sold, and in recent years, Brown has illustrated such award-winning and critically acclaimed picture books as Wild About Books, Born to Read, ZooZical!, and Wild About You! His latest book, In New York, introduces children to the city he now calls home.

The West Virginia Book Festival is made possible by its charter presenters, The Kanawha County Public Library, The Library Foundation of Kanawha County, Inc., The West Virginia Humanities Council and The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Sponsors for this year’s festival are West Virginia Public Broadcasting, The West Virginia Library Commission, The Center for the Book, The Marshall University Foundation, The Friends of The Library, and TC Energy Foundation.

All activities are free and open to the public. For more information visit www.wvbookfestival.org.

March 21, 1914: W.Va. Boys’ High School Basketball Tournament Begins in Buckhannon

The first state boys’ high school basketball tournament began in Buckhannon on March 21, 1914. The event was hosted by West Virginia Wesleyan College, which had West Virginia’s largest and finest gymnasium. Elkins High School took that first state title.

The tournament grew quickly in popularity. In 1922, a field of 64 teams was broken into ‘‘A’’ and ‘‘B’’ divisions, classified based on team strength rather than school size. In 1933, the tournament was reorganized with sectional winners advancing to eight regional tournaments.

The winner of those eight regionals—known as the ‘‘State Eight’’—then met in the statewide tournament. Since 1959, West Virginia has used a three-class format, based on school size.

To accommodate the growing crowds, the tournament was moved from Buckhannon to Mountaineer Field House in Morgantown in 1939. Beginning in 1955, the tournament began alternating between Morgantown and Huntington’s Memorial Field House. The Charleston Civic Center was added to the rotation in 1965. Charleston became the sole host site in 1972.

And what’s the winningest team in state high school tournament history? Beckley’s Woodrow Wilson, the winner of 16 state titles.

Charleston Civic Center Expansion Cost Climbs by $1.2M

A new change order has brought costs for the Charleston Civic Center expansion project up to nearly $93.6 million.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the Charleston City Council approved the $1.2 million change order Monday.

City Manager David Molgaard says some of the items included were unexpected. The city received a $380,000 bill to replace water pipes that would have burst if used, and spent $170,000 to construct a flood wall to meet new regulations.

The order also includes $130,000 for exterior LED lights and $265,000 for digital signs and software. Other costs include kitchen asbestos removal, a new dishwasher and a repair of a crack to avoid carpet damage.

Mountain Stage After Midnight: Colin Hay, Neko Case, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

What if I told you that Neko Case, Vic Chesnutt, Colin Hay and The Proclaimers took the same stage years ago? And what if I told you that it all happened in good ol’ Charleston, WV. Don’t believe me? Hear it for yourself this weekend on Mountain Stage After Midnight.

Broadcast from 1am-5am Saturday and Sunday mornings here on West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Mountain Stage After Midnight takes the best episodes from the show’s 31 year history and shares their memories and songs with our late-night listeners.

Tune in this Saturday June 27 and Sunday June 28 for some archived music goodness on Mountain Stage After Midnight.

We’ll hear an April 2009 show from the Charleston Civic Center Little Theater in Charleston, WV. It features Neko Case, Crooked Fingers, Greg Brown, Sonos and Vic Chesnutt…

The Proclaimers on Mountain Stage in 2009. Any guesses as to what they’re singing?

And a September 2009 show featuring Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Amy Speace, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, The Proclaimers and Cordis.

Want more Mountain Stage? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. Check out our 24/7 Mountain Stage stream, which is supported by music fans like you. Sign-up for our monthly email newsletter for show announcements and ticket deals. Come see what live performance radio looks like at one of our live shows. And if Mountain Stage isn’t available wherever you are, contact your public radio station and let them know what they’re missing out on!

Immunization Summit Brings Awareness of Measles Outbreak to W.Va.

The hot topic at this year’s Immunization Summit in Charleston was measles. An outbreak of the disease in Ohio has health care officials in West Virginia worried.

250 individuals representing school nurses, public and private health care providers, state health officials, and coalition members and partners from around the state attended the Immunization Summit to discuss how West Virginia can tackle Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. But Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Assistant Surgeon General, Rear Admiral, Dr. Anne Schuchat, says the biggest thing folks in West Virginia need to worry about is measles.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention Assistant Surgeon General, Rear Admiral, Dr. Anne Schuchat at the 2014 Immunization Summit.

“We’re at a twenty year high with measles, and the biggest outbreak is right next door in Ohio. Unfortunately, West Virginia has pretty low vaccine coverage against measles. Only at 85%, and that means that 15% of the children in West Virginia are vulnerable to measles. Measles can be serious and is really infectious, so I would encourage everybody to make sure their kids have gotten the recommended vaccine doses.”

According to Schuchat, there is currently a large outbreak of measles in the Philippines with over 30,000 cases. While the United States has been able to mostly prevent measles from spreading within the country, health officials did not anticipate catching it abroad.

“What happened in Ohio is that some individuals went to do mission work, to do humanitarian assistance in the Philippines, but they’d never been vaccinated. They got measles, they brought it back, they spread it within their own communities.”

Dr. Schuchat encourages adults as well as children to get their measles vaccination, and says West Virginia is a little bit behind the national average and she hopes the Immunization Summit will inspire families to get their vaccinations.