Tag: Government

History: Veterans Day Celebrated For 105 Years

On Nov. 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. the guns of World War I fell silent with a lasting armistice between the warring sides. The war officially came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the next summer. 

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11, 1919 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

In 1938, Congress passed a law making the date an official federal holiday. In 1954, the name of the holiday was then changed from Armistice Day to Veterans Day to include veterans of World War II, the recently ended war in Korea and future conflicts.

Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams stands with former Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin at the dedication of the first Gold Star Memorial in the state.

Eric Douglas/West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation,” which stated: “In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all Veterans, all Veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.”

In recognition of the holiday, local communities across the state, and nation, celebrate with remembrance events and parades. 

Watch WVPB’s award winning production of Woody Williams: An Extraordinary Life of Service.

This post is based on a history of Veterans Day from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

A red poppy is worn in the United Kingdom and Canada in remembrance of Veterans Day. It comes from the poem In Flanders Fields.

Eric Douglas/West Virginia Public Broadcasting

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

Legislators Receive Report On School Safety Needs

Student safety continues to be a concern across the nation. In West Virginia, a rash of hundreds of hoax threats made against schools across the state earlier this fall has renewed conversations about the safety of, and preparedness of, aging school structures and dwindling budgets.

Lawmakers on the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability (LOCEA) met Sunday, Nov. 10 to receive the annual school facility safety and security report from the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE).

The report is based on responses from county school districts, vocational centers and public charter schools regarding security measures that have been implemented and spent, as well as needs moving forward. The total request from all schools in the state for spending on security this year is close to $250 million.

Jonah Adkins, director of the Office of Safety & Tiered Support Systems, told the commission that much of that amount would be one-time expenses, and local school systems have spent more than $23 million to address school safety and security needs. 

“We know that we would never be able to meet all this at once, but if we could chip away a little bit each year, I believe that we can make some good headway,” he said. “Our school districts are working with the resources that they do have available to them to address those needs as they arise, but obviously there is a greater need. It’s the unfortunate reality of our society that we live in, that we have people that are targeting children and targeting our schools to do bad things.”

Adkins told the commission that school entries are a top need because they are specified as the next distribution from the State Treasury’s special revenue fund, the “Safe Schools Fund”, after all public school facilities have been funded to meet special education video camera requirements.

Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel, asked about the report listing 272 schools needing new entryways, or what he called “mantraps,” at an average cost of $319,000 per entry. 

Micah Whitlow, director of the Office of School Facilities for WVDE, explained the number comes from the requests districts submitted as part of the report survey, professional estimates and the known cost of similar projects. He said a specific building’s needs can raise or lower the price significantly.

“We have a pretty good basis of knowledge that a mantrap is going to be in that $300 (thousand) to $500 (thousand) range,” he said. “Some of them could be super complicated and be a million, depending on the configuration and the age of the building. And some of them might be very simple and be maybe $100,000.”

Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, expressed shock that so many schools were still without adequate security at their entrances, and pointed out that the legislature had allocated money for that specific security improvement several times.

“What is causing us to have so many at this point in the game that doesn’t have a safe entrance way?” he asked.

Whitlow replied that the number of schools needing to upgrade their entryways has decreased year to year, but the price is simply too high for some counties.

“Looking back at the previous reports, the number has been decreasing, it’s just expensive,” he said. “So it’s hard to pay for a whole lot of those, and especially if a county doesn’t have a levy or a bond or there’s extra ways of building things. It’s just been hard for them.”

Statler asked what the plan is to ensure the safety of students and staff in schools without “mantrap” entryways. Adkins replied that most schools have moved to restrict entry and exit from the building to one door, as outlined in their mandated Crisis Response Plan.

Del. Patrick Lucas, R-Cabell, asked about the implementation of weapons detection systems after a school administrator in Ohio was stabbed by a parent before being arrested in West Virginia in October.

“Can you comment on how successful the schools with weapon detection systems have been?” he asked. “Is it more of a deterrent, or are we actually catching people trying to bring weapons into the school?”

Adkins and LOCEA Co-Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, commented that having someone to monitor and run a weapons detection system is often a barrier to implementation.

“I’ve had that conversation multiple times with with school personnel regarding, how do you if you have a high school with 1000 students, how are you going to get all those students through, through one metal detector, for example, and who’s who’s going to mind that, and who’s going to respond if they do find a weapon?” Adkins said.

Whitlow closed by providing more solid numbers on the declining need for new mantraps in schools. He said the number of schools without a mantrap is trending down from 327 in the 2021-22 school year, to 299 in the 2022-23 school year and 272 in this most recent report for the 2023-24 school year.

W.Va. Foresters Urge Lawmakers Not To Eliminate Regulatory Board

The Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization met during an interim session of the West Virginia Legislature Tuesday afternoon.

As the West Virginia Legislature conducts performance reviews of some state agencies, forestry officials are discouraging legislators from sunsetting a statewide organization.

Earlier this year, West Virginia lawmakers considered eliminating some regulatory bodies, including the West Virginia Board of Registration for Foresters. No such bill passed, but the Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization indicated it might conduct performance reviews on the groups in the near future.

Lawmakers did just that during an interim committee meeting Sunday afternoon, where they discussed the board’s current operations. The board is responsible for certifying and registering all foresters in West Virginia — professionals trained to grow, manage and conserve forests.

Established by the Legislature in 1963, the board consists of five licensed professional foresters with at least one decade of experience, according to the organization’s website. There are approximately 305 certified foresters currently employed in West Virginia, counsel to the committee said.

According to the committee’s counsel, the board is self-sustaining financially and does not have a “scope of practice” beyond protecting and certifying the title of “forester” in West Virginia.

During the interim meeting, representatives from the board testified to committee members and asserted that the board plays an important role in protecting the title of forester.

According to Robert Boyles, executive director of the West Virginia Forestry Association, individuals from all different backgrounds can represent themselves as foresters in states that lack a formal certification, even if they lack the requisite ecological or economic training.

In Ohio, for example, “anybody can call themselves a forester,” he said. “There’s loggers… they don’t need to have the necessary background… when it comes to managing a forest.” 

Boyles said improper forestry can deplete wood resources and harm property owners unable to find an accredited professional to consult for help. In the long term, he said this could result in unchecked deforestation and fewer people on hand to address the problem.

“It’s like the minimum,” agreed Dave McGill, the board’s secretary-treasurer.

McGill said alternatives to a state-run forestry accreditation, like a national accreditation system, would produce challenges.

Residents must pay $100 to complete a forestry exam in West Virginia, $50 to apply for certification, and $35 annually to renew their certification.

Similar national organizations like the Society of American Foresters charge $385 per year for credentialization, McGill said.

Del. Rick Hillenbrand, R-Hampshire, asked whether this meant removing a state certification process would shift a greater burden onto foresters themselves. The board representatives said it would.

Removing the board would mark an “extremely significant change” in the dues structure, Boyles said.

During the meeting, the committee did not consider taking action toward the board. But with another year’s legislative session approaching, state lawmakers could reintroduce bills to eliminate regulatory groups like the board as early as February 2025.

Election Results and Drought Conditions, This West Virginia Week

On this West Virginia Week, Jim Justice, the state’s two-term Republican governor, won a decisive victory in the race for the U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s general election. Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s three-term attorney general, won the governorship, continuing a conservative shift in state leadership.

Meanwhile, parts of West Virginia have been experiencing drought conditions, with the Department of Forestry fighting 82 wildfires in the southern coalfields this week. Also, West Virginians can apply for assistance covering home heating costs for the upcoming winter months.

Emily Rice is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.

West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Caelan Bailey, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, Maria Young and Randy Yohe.

Learn more about West Virginia Week.

Multiple New Officials Will Lead Highest W.Va. Administrative Body

West Virginia Public Broadcasting has compiled a list of the newly elect Board of Public Works members who will help lead the state government once Morrisey takes office.

Updated on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024 at 12:30 p.m.

This January, a new group of public officials will helm the West Virginia Board of Public Works, the state’s highest administrative body.

The board is comprised of six elected officers: the governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer and agriculture commissioner. The state superintendent is also a board member, but is appointed by members of the West Virginia Board of Education — who are themselves appointed by the governor.

This year, all but one of the elected incumbents sought new government roles.

Board members play a key role in decision-making surrounding state property and public utilities, according to the West Virginia Humanities Council website. They may also coordinate policy efforts with the governor.

That is a role that will be assumed by current Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who was endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump. He will assume the governorship this January after winning 62.1% of votes, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office.

All newly elect members of the board are Republicans. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has compiled a list of the incoming officers who will help lead the state government alongside Morrisey.

Attorney General: J.B. McCuskey

Republican State Auditor J.B. McCuskey will take over for Morrisey as attorney general. He has held his current role since 2016, during which he launched a website publicizing state financial information. Previously, he represented Kanawha County in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

“What we see is that people from D.C. and New York and California don’t want family-centered, traditional value states that depend on natural resources for their economy to be successful,” McCuskey said ahead of his May primary. “You have unelected bureaucrats throughout the federal government, overstepping their legal and constitutional bounds, in order to fulfill political ideologies.”

McCuskey won against Democrat Teresa Toriseva with 70.18% of votes, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Total contributions to McCuskey’s campaign amounted to nearly $1.5 million.

Secretary of State: Kris Warner

Current Economic Development Authority Director Kris Warner will become the next secretary of state, taking over a role currently held by his brother, Mac Warner. Mac Warner leaves the seat after coming in fourth during the Republican gubernatorial primary.

“We face challenges from within our party, with individuals who do not share our beliefs,” Kris Warner’s Dec. 8, 2023 campaign launch read. “It’s crucial to stop these RINOs (Republicans in name only) from diluting our values and infiltrating our party.”

Kris Warner won against Democrat Thornton Cooper with 71.30% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Total contributions to Kris Warner’s campaign amounted to more than $182,000.

Auditor: Mark Hunt

Currently representing Kanawha County in the West Virginia Senate, Republican Mark Hunt will soon take McCuskey’s seat as state auditor.

Hunt unsuccessfully ran to represent West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District as a Democrat in 2016, and lost a nonpartisan race for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in 2018.

Hunt’s campaign website outlines campaign goals of increasing government transparency, reducing fraud, stopping overreach and protecting tax dollars.

Hunt won against Democrat Mary Ann Claytor with 68.87% of votes, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Total contributions to Hunt’s campaign amounted to nearly $90,000.

Treasurer: Larry Pack

Acting Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Revenue Larry Pack will advance to a more senior role as West Virginia’s chief financial officer after facing no Democratic opposition in this year’s race for state treasurer. He fills the role currently held by U.S. Representative-elect Riley Moore.

Decades before his name was on any ballot, Pack carved out an accounting and health entrepreneurship career in southern West Virginia. In 2020, he parlayed that experience into a spot on Kanawha County’s Republican ticket, and won a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

His time in the West Virginia Legislature was cut short in 2022, when he stepped down to serve as a senior advisor to Gov. Jim Justice. Pack’s work with the governor’s administration secured his current appointment with the Department of Revenue in late 2023.

Pack’s platform included goals of reducing state spending, protecting the public pension system and promoting financial literacy, according to his campaign website. Pack also opposes investment decision-making based around environmental concerns, social issues and corporate governance.

Contributions to Pack’s campaign totaled more than $482,000.

Agriculture Commissioner: Kent Leonhardt

The only incumbent to remain on the board, Kent Leonhardt won re-election as the state’s agriculture commissioner for his third term. Leonhardt has expressed support for Morrisey.

Previously, Leonhardt represented Monongalia County as a state senator after retiring from the United States Marine Corps.

His campaign focused on bolstering agricultural development and livestock production, while also expanding food access.

Leonhardt won against Democrat Deborah Stiles with 62.29% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Contributions to Leonhardt’s campaign totaled nearly $270,000.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include a photograph of incoming Secretary of State Kris Warner rather than the outgoing Sectary of State Mac Warner.

AG Morrisey Wins West Virginia Governor’s Race

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey easily won the West Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, using an endorsement from former U.S. President Donald Trump to catapult him to victory in the deep red state.

Morrisey emphasized his role as a “conservative fighter” in the courts on issues ranging from abortion to transgender participation in sports to best Steve Williams, the Democratic mayor of West Virginia’s second-largest city of Huntington.

“You deserve respect and dignity and a path for a better life,” Morrisey told cheering supporters at the Martinsburg Roundhouse event center, after the race was called. ”I want to help you find that by fighting to protect your freedoms and eliminating all the barriers where you have government standing in your way.”

Morrisey will become just the third Republican elected to a first gubernatorial term in West Virginia since 1928. Outgoing two-term governor Jim Justice, now a Republican, was first elected as a Democrat in 2016. He switched parties months later at a rally for Trump.

Morrisey told supporters that he had received a call from Williams, who he called a friend, conceding the race. He thanked Williams for his service to Huntington and for running a “civil” campaign.

Morrisey’s win further solidifies the GOP’s ever-tightening grip in the mountain state, where Democrats reigned for decades. He said Tuesday that for far too long the state’s industries have struggled and young people have felt forced to leave the state.

“They’ve lost hope, and they’ve felt the wave of economic hardships that have held back our families and our state,” he said. “But tonight we stand on the threshold of a new chapter.”

Trump-endorsed Morrisey leveraged high-profile litigation taken on by his office to make the case for why he was the best man for governor.

Since he was elected attorney general in 2012, Morrisey, 56, has led litigation against opioid manufacturers and distributors netting around $1 billion to abate the crisis that has led to 6,000 children living in foster care in a state of around 1.8 million.

He defended a law preventing transgender youth from participating in sports and a scholarship program passed by the Republican lawmakers that would incentivize parents to pull their kids from traditional public school and enroll them in private education or homeschooling.

Key to his candidacy has been his role in defending a near-total ban on abortions passed by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2022 and going to court to restrict West Virginians’ access to abortion pills.

In a statement after a U.S. District Court judge blocked access to the pills in 2023, Morrisey vowed to “always stand strong for the life of the unborn.”

Williams, a 60-year-old former state lawmaker, tried to make the argument that most voters found the new abortion law too restrictive.

Earlier this year, Williams collected thousands of signatures on a petition to push lawmakers to vote to put abortion on the ballot for voters. The effort was unsuccessful. Republicans have repeatedly dismissed the idea of placing an abortion-rights measure before voters, which in West Virginia is a step only lawmakers can take.

West Virginia is among the 25 states that do not allow citizen initiatives or constitutional amendments on a statewide ballot, an avenue of direct democracy that has allowed voters to circumvent their legislatures and preserve abortion and other reproductive rights in several states over the past two years.

Republican leadership has pointed to a 2018 vote in which just under 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment saying there is no right to abortion access in the state. But Williams said the vote also had to do with state funding of abortion, which someone could oppose without wanting access completely eliminated.

In Charleston on Tuesday, first-time voter Candace Morris said abortion was the most important issue to her in deciding who to support in the race. She chose to support Williams.

“I just don’t think it’s right for the government to control women’s reproductive rights,” said Morris, a 19-year-old student studying social work at West Virginia State University, a historically Black institution. “I don’t want to have to leave the state to get an abortion if I need to get one. I just don’t think it’s right, especially for lower-class people without resources.”

William Harmon, a retiree from Hurricane, said he supported Morrisey because he likes what he has accomplished as attorney general. “I think he’ll defend us very well,” he said.

Harmon said Democrat Steve Williams “really didn’t seem to be very active until these last two weeks before the election.”

“I don’t think anybody outside of Huntington really knows him very well,” he said.

Kristen Greene, an elementary school teacher from Charleston, said she is a Christian registered Republican who is vehemently against abortion. She considers it one of her top issues when it comes to deciding who to vote for, she said.

However, Greene said there was no way she could support Morrisey for governor. In 2018, when West Virginia school service personnel and teachers went on strike, Morrisey said the strike was illegal and that he would go to court to try to force workers back on the job.

“I don’t trust that he has the best interest of teachers at heart,” she said. “He didn’t support teachers. Does he expect teachers to support him?”

Greene, who previously lived in Huntington, said she’s a “big fan” of Williams and the job he’s done as mayor.

“I stand behind him,” she said.

Morrisey previously ran for U.S. Senate in 2018 but lost to Independent U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, then a Democrat.

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