Kearneysville Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Eastern Panhandle Celebrates Decade Of Inpatient Hospice Care

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hospice of the Panhandle’s inpatient campus in Kearneysville. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., delivered a speech to commemorate the anniversary.

For patients with terminal illnesses, hospice care is a form of health care that provides enhanced comfort and quality-of-life resources when few medical options remain.

But ensuring a hospice patient’s comfort and happiness can be tricky in a traditional hospital setting, according to Maria Lorenson, development director of Hospice of the Panhandle located in Jefferson and Berkeley counties.

Crowded medical settings often come with loud noises and fewer lifestyle supports, she said. But that’s where inpatient facilities come in.

Inpatient facilities like Hospice of the Panhandle’s campus in Kearneysville provide a residential health care setting.

Here, patients continue to receive support, but also experience a level of normalcy harder to access in a traditional hospital, Lorenson said.

“It’s very quiet, peaceful (and) serene.”

While Hospice of the Panhandle has operated since 1980, this year marks the 10th anniversary of its current inpatient facility. To celebrate, residents of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle and beyond visited the campus Monday.

During the celebration, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., delivered remarks regarding her parents’ history undergoing hospice care, as well as the importance of supporting end-of-life health care facilities.

“This is a real soft spot for me, hospice care,” she said.

Hospice of the Panhandle CEO Nikki Bigiarelli welcomes guests to a celebration of the inpatient facility’s tenth anniversary.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

“The way to care for either life-ending illnesses or folks with dementia — or whatever the issue is — is something that I think all of us… will live,” Capito continued. “Every tender touch, every warm and friendly smile, every professional engagement is so absolutely important.”

Capito’s sentiments were echoed by Patti Maerten Hicks, whose husband, Dan, was admitted to the facility after receiving a pancreatic cancer diagnosis at age 47.

As her husband’s condition worsened, Maerten Hicks said that staff members volunteered to host an impromptu ceremony at the facility that would allow her husband to take part in their children’s high school graduation.

Maerten Hicks said that seeing facility staff and the local community rally around the ceremony brought joy to her husband and family during a particularly challenging period of time.

“Our family experience is just one story, one experience, that demonstrates how important the inpatient facility is to our community,” she said.

Hospice of the Panhandle is a health care facility located in Kearneysville, Jefferson County.

*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Lorenson said that operating an inpatient facility can be costly, which has limited the prevalence of inpatient care nationwide.

But residents can access hospice care using Medicare or Medicaid benefits, which prevents any financial burden from falling on the facility’s patients themselves, she said.

Plus, with the creation of the inpatient facility 10 years ago, Lorenson said that she and her colleagues feel they have enhanced medical resources available to the rural community surrounding the facility.

In a speech to the celebration’s guests, Hospice of the Panhandle CEO Nikki Bigiarelli said that the facility remains committed to continuing to serve residents like these in the years ahead.

Since opening 10 years ago, the inpatient facility — which can serve up to 14 individuals at a time — has admitted more than 3,000 patients for care, she said.

“I was born and raised here in the Panhandle, and taking care of our own people is very near and dear to my heart,” Bigiarelli said. “We’re going to continue to find ways to serve and take care of the deserving people of this Panhandle.”

All 5 W.Va. Public Charter Schools On Track To Open In Fall 2022

All five of West Virginia’s public charter schools are on track to open in fall 2022, despite a location issue for one of the brick-and-mortar schools. Nitro Preparatory Academy, one of the state’s three physical charter schools, hit a snag recently and is searching for a new building in Kanawha County.

All five of West Virginia’s public charter schools are on track to open in fall 2022, despite a location issue for one of the brick-and-mortar schools.

Nitro Preparatory Academy, one of the state’s three physical charter schools, hit a snag recently and is searching for a new building in Kanawha County.

“Our plans to locate Nitro Preparatory Academy at 302 21st Street [in Nitro] have changed due to a zoning challenge pertaining to the number of parking spaces available on-site,” Courtney Harritt, spokesperson for ACCEL Schools, said in an email. “At this time we are reviewing alternative locations in Nitro and throughout Kanawha County.”

Harritt said they hope to have a new building secured by mid-May.

ACCEL Schools is the education service provider for three of West Virginia’s five charter schools: Eastern Panhandle Preparatory Academy in Kearneysville, Nitro Prep and Virtual Preparatory Academy of West Virginia.

Harritt said interest has been strong at both Virtual Prep and Eastern Panhandle Prep with more than 100 applications at each school. Both schools will offer grades K-10.

Virtual Prep, along with another virtual school, West Virginia Virtual Academy, are the state’s two virtual charters.

West Virginia Virtual Academy will offer grades K-12, and its education service provider is a company called Stride.

Another brick-and-mortar charter school, West Virginia Academy, will be located in Morgantown and offer K-9. Its founder, John Treu, said in an email that the school will open in August.

“Our opening day is in early August because we have a modified term schedule with longer breaks between terms than traditional public schools,” Treu said. “We’ve hired most of our faculty and staff and over 400 students have applied and been admitted.”

Treu said the school has reached about 80 percent of total capacity with a couple grades nearly full. He said the majority of students are coming from Monongalia and Preston counties, with a few students enrolled from Marion County.

In related news, the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board met Friday. Prior to the meeting, Chairman Adam Kissel told West Virginia Public Broadcasting in an email that the board would have an “executive director discussion.”

However, this issue wasn’t brought up in the meeting. The board entered executive session for a “personnel matter” and then promptly adjourned.

The board has been searching for an executive director for some time. In October, the board had received at least six applications.

Leveling The Playing Field, Video Games Empower People With Disabilities

For people with disabilities, video games can help them feel more included and accepted in social circles.

“In a video game, you don’t know that I have a disability,” Mark Barlet, the founder of The AbleGamers Charity in Kearneysville, Jefferson County, explained. But not everyone with a disability can play video games with a traditional controller.

Founded in 2004, AbleGamers is an organization that helps people with disabilities play video games with specially made video game controllers.

“I’ve seen where a profoundly disabled person mentions that they play a game and all the sudden, while that person was being completely ignored in a crowd, the person next to them says, ‘I play that game too!’ and all of a sudden, they’re friends,” Barlet said.

Take the game system Xbox One, for example. A traditional controller is held with both hands, and your thumbs and pointer fingers are used to make the character or object on the screen move and interact.

AbleGamers’ employee Greg Haynes uses an Xbox One adaptive controller to play a game called Rocket League.

An adaptive controller, allows someone who can’t hold a traditional controller to navigate a video game in a way that’s comfortable for them. The Xbox One adaptive controller, looks like a white, plastic pad with large black buttons built into the device, and outlets along its side to connect it with other external buttons.

“One thing that people don’t think of when they hold a traditional controller is that about 60 percent of your digits are used just to hold the controller,” AbleGamers employee Greg Haynes said. “And for some players with disabilities, based on a number of things, that may not be a reality. So, something like the Xbox adaptive controller, [it] allows you to essentially take the controller, flatten it down, and have it be on a surface, so that you have access to a potential layout of buttons.”

AbleGamers has only six employees. Four are full-time, two are part-time, and then there are a few volunteers. But they work with game developers and engineers to develop these specialized controllers. In some cases, they help people get more complex devices that respond to eye movements, foot taps, breath or finger taps. These kinds of controllers aren’t sold in stores.

This adaptive controller called the Adroit Switchblade was created by AbleGamers and Evil Controllers. It can be used with an Xbox.

Some of the devices are made in-house at AbleGamers, but most are either purchased or made elsewhere.

In 2018, AbleGamers said they helped more than 1,400 people with disabilities get back into or start gaming. About 8 percent of those people required intricate, specially made controllers.

Demand for these controllers is high, though, and AbleGamers said they’re only able to help about 30 percent of the requests that come in at any given time.

But some experts are concerned that relying on video games for social interactions (or technology in general) could be more negative than positive.

“You can’t replace [in-person] social interaction,” Shepherd University associate professor of psychology Heidi Dobish said.

Dobish specializes in child, adolescent development and lifespan social psychology.

“Those that are spending a lot of time on Facebook, research is showing that they tend to have lower self-esteem, because we are seeing an increase in anxiety, depression, loneliness, isolation; those sorts of things.”

Dobish said access to video games for folks with disabilities can help a person feel empowered and create inclusion, but she cautions this shouldn’t replace in-person interactions – especially for young people.

This adaptive controller made for the Xbox One game system was modeled after AbleGamers’ Adroit Switchblade adaptive controller.

Inclusive socialization is one of the main benefits of video games for Jane Timmons-Mitchell, though, a clinical psychologist and senior research associate at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

She said video games, especially those with educational or social components, can be a great thing for children and adults. In the case of someone with a disability, playing video games with others can help them feel connected.

“One of the things that is pretty well established is that those can really increase cooperation and social skills,” Timmons-Mitchell said.

Both Dobish and Timmons-Mitchell agree finding balance is key, though, and that encouraging in-person social interactions and time spent outside, away from screens, is hugely beneficial to a person’s mental and physical health – for those with disabilities and for those without.

This life size power armor from the Fallout video games hangs out here in one of the hallways at the AbleGamers headquarters in Kearneysville, W.Va.

AbleGamers founder Barlet agrees that moderation and monitoring video game consumption is good. But he said he believes there is still great power through video games – that they can create an avenue where everyone is on the same playing field.

“That’s the power of this world that we live in now – that I don’t have to be defined by my race, my creed, my LGBT status, [or] my disability. We have those shared spaces, we have those connections,” he said.

From his perspective, getting to play video games gives people the chance to run, jump, create and be anyone they want to be.

More Outdoor Learning Could Improve Student Achievement & Confidence

Community members are rallying around a school in the Eastern Panhandle. They want to build an outdoor classroom so that kids can get into nature more readily. The goal is to improve academic achievement and provide more opportunities – especially for kids from low-income areas.

Let’s Build Some Raised Gardens

Fourth-graders at North Jefferson Elementary School in Jefferson County are spending a portion of their morning learning outside of the classroom…in the front lawn of their school.

“We are making a garden,” a handful of them said, “We have three raised beds. One’s a circle. One’s [an] Orca. And one’s a square.”

Back in January, on a rare, warm winter day, these kids planted their first seeds in three raised vegetable gardens.

They designed and built the gardens with the help from their teacher Jim Jenkins and a newly formed community group based out of Charles Town called the Kiwanis Club of Blue Ridge West Virginia.

Kiwanis Club of Blue Ridge West Virginia member Roger Ethier helps two students dig in the dirt.

“The Kiwanis came to us and asked if they could make some raised bed gardens,” Jenkins said, “and I thought it was a great idea; they wanted the kids to raise their own food.”

This local chapter of the Kiwanis Club is a member of the Kiwanis International group, which says its focus is to empower communities and improve the world by making a difference in the lives of children.

“The school population is some of the most underprivileged population of Jefferson County,” noted Kiwanis Club of Blue Ridge member Tom Cain, “and we felt it important to adopt the school to try to come in and provide mentorship for as many of the students as we could.”

Increasing Educational Opportunities

North Jefferson Elementary School is one of more than 340 Title I public schools in West Virginia.

That means, most of the students at North Jefferson come from low-income households, so the school gets federal financial assistance to help ensure its students meet state academic standards and get as many of the same opportunities as other schools.

The Kiwanis Club stepped in to help enrich educational opportunities at the school, but wants to go beyond three raised garden beds. They hope to secure private and state funding to revitalize the entire schoolyard behind the school, turning it into an outdoor classroom.

Jenkins, the students’ teacher, is excited for it.

“This area right here is going to be a monarch way station, and that’s going to be a wildflower meadow there, and we’re gonna have book stations, benches, geology,” he explained, “and then behind the school, if you have time, we’ll look at the spot I think the outdoor classroom’s gonna go.”

Students step back inside the classroom with their teacher Jim Jenkins to graph out the best locations in the soil to plant their seeds.

Behind the school, the hope is to create a variety of seating areas and outdoor learning stations. Jenkins hopes to teach not just science out here, but also writing, math and social studies.

“This is an ideal location for an outdoor classroom,” said Roger Ethier — also a member of the Kiwanis Club of Blue Ridge West Virginia. He’s been spearheading the outdoor classroom project at North Jefferson.

“When the students finish the outdoor classroom, they have this beautiful outdoor area where they can hop, skip, and jump, and just have a great time.”

Inspiration from 500 Miles Away

Ethier says this outdoor classroom project was inspired by a successful initiative in Boston, Massachusetts called the Boston Schoolyard Initiative.

The Boston project lasted almost 20 years, and by the time it ended in 2013, more than 80 schoolyards in Boston were revitalized from barren asphalt lots to centers for recreation, learning and community life, including 33 outdoor classrooms.

Kristin Metz was the Director of Education for the Boston Schoolyard Initiative for thirteen years. She and teachers involved in the Boston project participated in a study where they reported observing significant growth in students as outdoor classrooms were more utilized – from deeper interest and confidence in science coursework to a sense of equality among their peers.

“It leveled the playing field that students who had very different life experiences could come together and share what they were doing outside, and that gave them more respect for each other,” Metz said.

Metz says she thinks the same thing could happen for the students at North Jefferson – many of whom come from low-income homes.

According to a 2011 study done by the National Center for Education Statistics, students in the United States who come from low-income homes are five times more likely to drop out of high school than middle-income students. In West Virginia, one out of every 100 students dropped out of high school during the 2016-2017 school year, according to state sources.

“If students are outdoors, they have access to a wide range of experiences,” Metz noted, “You know, you can touch things that are very soft, or hard, or brittle, or bristly, or spikey, or soggy, and that’s just at the very, most basic level – you have this range of materials, and they’re available, they’re free, they’re just there, and so I think that it just very much enriches what students have access to.”

One of three raised garden beds at North Jefferson Elementary; the Orca garden.

What’s Next for North Jefferson Elementary?

The Kiwanis Club of Blue Ridge West Virginia has continued to develop school gardens at North Jefferson Elementary over the school year, but still doesn’t have the funds to build out the full outdoor classroom.

They hope to hear soon about a state grant that would allow them to make progress.

As the school year nears its close, the students at North Jefferson now have spinach and lettuce growing in their gardens, and they’ve recently planted strawberries.

A solar panel was also installed to provide rainwater irrigation to support two butterfly beds and the raised gardens.

Drug Epidemic Takes Toll on Foster Care System

The drug epidemic in West Virginia affects more than just the work force, or the number of people in a prison cell or treatment center. It’s also had a major impact on the state’s foster children. West Virginia Public Broadcasting introduces the Holben family who has seen the impacts of the drug epidemic first-hand.

Meet the Holbens

Alyssa Holben is 8-years-old and in second grade. She came to live with the Holbens as an infant; first as a foster child and was later adopted.

Alyssa’s older and biological sister, Aaliyah, was also adopted by the Holbens, at 2-years-old. She’s now 10, in the fourth grade, and is shyer than her little sister.

Both girls love church, gymnastics, Disney movies and their 2-year-old brother, Brayden.

You would never know, but all three kids were exposed to drugs or alcohol in utero.

Alyssa was born addicted to heroin. Her older sister, Aaliyah, was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. And their little brother, Brayden, who’s not biologically related to the girls, was born addicted to three different kinds of drugs.

Jen and Jamie Holben, the children’s parents, live in Kearneysville, Jefferson County, with their six kids, four of whom were adopted through the state’s foster care system. The Holbens have been foster parents for nearly 13 years and have fostered almost 30 children during that time – ranging in age from infant to 18.

“We wanted to help out in some way, I mean, because I think we’re all here to make a difference,” Jamie said, “and we were very driven, whether it’s from our past hurts from us growing up as kids, or just seeing this world be cruel to people, you know, just wanting to make a difference.”

Jamie is a police officer who works in nearby Loudoun County, Va., and Jen is a stay-at-home mom.

The Holbens say one of the biggest struggles they’ve found raising their three kids who were born addicted to drugs and alcohol is the medical and academic problems that come with it.

“The three children we have in this house that have been affected by drugs and alcohol are totally different,” Jen noted, “They all have their own different disabilities and struggles. Brayden has three holes in his heart; Alyssa had a heart murmur when she was little, and academically, both girls struggle in different places.”

Alyssa and Aaliyah see their doctor every six months. Both girls take medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Alyssa also takes medicine to help her fall asleep at night. And Aaliyah takes one for epilepsy.

While Jen said Brayden seems to be developing in line with other children his age, she and her husband, Jamie, wonder how the kids’ individual struggles will affect them when they’re older.

“I think one of our biggest battles is, is there gonna be a plateau? Are they gonna reach a certain limit, and then, that’s it?” Jamie said. “We don’t know, and there’s no doctor that can give you that answer, there’s no psychologist, psychiatrist that can give you that answer, just because they don’t know.”

Effects on the Foster Care System in West Virginia

At the end of August, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources had 5,068 children in foster care, 274 of whom are in out-of-state placements.

Only about 1,500 of those children are available for adoption, according to the West Virginia Supreme Court. Justice Brent Benjamin said that’s because some are placed in foster care temporarily.

“In many cases, they’re in temporary situations because maybe mom or dad are going through an improvement period,” Benjamin said, “because there’s been an abuse-neglect issue, or there could be any number of issues there, but they’re in foster care on a temporary basis as opposed to something that is more long term.”

But just how many of those children are in foster care because of their parents’ problems with drugs or alcohol?

Linda Watts, Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau for Children and Families at DHHR, said that number is difficult to track.

“Sometimes the reason that you’re removing a child for abuse-neglect is not necessarily the primary reason is substance abuse; it could be for another issue say physical abuse; it could be neglect, it could be some other related issue and then as you continue to do your investigation, it may then surface that it was substance use and abuse,” Watts said.

“What we’re seeing is that drugs may not be the primary issue in the abuse-neglect case, but it is certainly a driving issue in over 95 percent of those cases, so it’s a profound driving force in issues related to the welfare of children.” – Justice Brent Benjamin

Abigayle Koller is a clinical coordinator with the West Virginia National Youth Advocate Program, which is one of 10 specialized foster care agencies in West Virginia.

Koller said it can also be difficult to provide foster parents with the information they need to deal with the possible medical or developmental issues associated with substance abuse, because sometimes children’s birth or medical records are never provided to the agency and can’t be tracked down.

“So we often treat what we see,” Koller said, “which doesn’t do justice when a lot of the needs are underlying, and we have to dig, and we have to start with what we see in order to uncover what we don’t see.”

Being a Foster Parent

Jen Holben said she and her husband knew when they adopted Alyssa, Aaliyah and Brayden, that drugs or alcohol had been in their systems before birth, but she said that doesn’t always make addressing their needs any easier. While the demand for foster families in West Virginia is growing, Jen said it takes special people to do it.

“If you’re gonna go pick up a baby from a hospital, know that baby can scream for four months, because he’s addicted to drugs,” she said, “or know that, that child might have developmental delays, and be okay in accepting. You’ve got to be accepting of not just the children, but be accepting of their biological parents, and you have to support what that biological parent is doing to get their kid back.”

Jen and Jamie say they never expected to be where they are today, but they’re grateful for each of their kids — adopted and fostered. They hope the state can make the overall foster system better, especially for the kids who slip through the cracks.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Help The USDA Count Stink Bugs in West Virginia

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville is hosting a second year of its Great Stink Bug Count in the hopes more data will help answer previous questions about the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.

In 2013, five different categories were studied to understand why the stink bug is attracted to certain areas versus others. These categories included landscape, color, home exterior material, cardinal direction, and peak activity.

The USDA Appalachian Fruit Research Station is looking for more “citizen scientists” to participate in helping to gather data for this year. It asks participants to count the number of Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs on the exterior of their homes from September 15^th to October 15^th.

2013 Great Stink Bug Count Preliminary Results:

Total Number of Participants Who Returned Data
- 299
Total Number of Participants Who Counted Everyday
- 44
Total Number of States Participating
- 11- Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia
Largest Total Number of BMSBs Counted
- 30, 220
Smallest Total Number of BMSBs Counted
- 0
Mean Number of BMSBs Counted Per Household
- 2,083
Landscape Type Generating the Greatest Counts
- Mixed Agriculture & Woodlands
Color of Home with Greatest Counts
- Brown
Type of Home Exterior With Greatest Counts
- Wood
Cardinal Direction Yielding Greatest Counts
- North
Peak Date of BMSB Activity
- October 1, 2013

Q&A with Dr. Tracy Leskey, Research Entomologist, USDA-Appalachian Research Station

What’s new this year in the stink bug count?

“We are using the same protocol as last year BUT we want to confirm some of the patterns that we observed last year AND to see if we can observe differences in the size of the population relative to 2013.”

Goals for this year?

“The goal is to better understand where Brown Marmorated Stink Bug chooses to overwinter. Are there specific visual cues (color of home) or building materials that could influence their choice? How important is the landscape in terms of the numbers that show up? Do we see a particular side of the home that is favored? Is there a peak date of activity around the region?”

How can the community get involved?

“They can become citizen scientists and agree to count the number of stink bugs showing up on the exterior of their homes between September 15 and October 15, 2014.”

What’s interesting or different about this year?

“There has been a great deal of discussion about the size of the population – that the 2014 population is smaller than 2013. This count will help establish if this is truly the case.”

To participate in this year’s count, you can find an application on the Stop BMSB website.