Massachusetts Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

April 4, 1944: Critic John Bishop Dies at 51

Critic John Peale Bishop died in Massachusetts on April 4, 1944, at age 51. He was born at Charles Town in Jefferson County in 1892 and attended high school in Hagerstown, Maryland.

When he was 17, he experienced a temporary and unexplainable bout of blindness. That’s when he decided to become a writer. In 1912, his poem, ‘‘To a Woodland Pool,’’ was published in Harpers Weekly.

The next year, Bishop entered Princeton University, where he was a classmate of F. Scott Fitzgerald. His first book of poetry, Green Fruit, was published in 1917. He went to work for Vanity Fair and served as the magazine’s managing editor for two years. He and his wife traveled extensively, and he lived in France for lengthy periods during the 1920s and early ‘30s. During this time, Bishop established lifelong friendships with critic Allen Tate and poet Archibald MacLeish.

John Peale Bishop wrote his finest criticism, essays, and poetry reviews between 1933 and 1940. His 1931 book, Many Thousands Gone, features interrelated stories set in a fictionalized 19th-century Charles Town. The title story won the prestigious Scribner’s Prize.

March 16, 1971: Industrialist J. G. Bradley Dies at 89

Industrialist J. G. Bradley died on March 16, 1971, at age 89. The New Jersey native moved to West Virginia in 1904 and soon became president of the Elk River Coal & Lumber Company.

The company’s landholdings in central West Virginia were so significant that the county of Clay couldn’t meet its financial obligations until the company paid its taxes each year.

Bradley built the coal town of Widen and lumber town of Swandale in Clay County. A major powerbroker in the first half of the 20^th century, he served as president of the National Coal Association and the West Virginia Coal Association while living in an elegant estate at Dundon, near the town of Clay.

Bradley was staunchly antiunion. To keep the United Mine Workers of America out of Widen, he formed a company-sponsored union that was independent of the UMWA.

He kept his workers’ loyalty by providing attractive housing, schools, and a variety of recreational resources. Union organizers tried unsuccessfully on three occasions to get Widen miners to join the UMWA.

J. G. Bradley sold the Widen mine in 1959 and moved to Massachusetts, where he died.

Senate Bill Removes Remnants of Common Core in W.Va.

A bill to prohibit any Common Core-based education standards from being taught in West Virginia classrooms was taken up in the Senate’s Education committee Saturday. The standards have been debated for years at the statehouse and now lawmakers are looking at legislation that specifies what can be taught.

Common Core education standards have been a central point of debate in the West Virginia Legislature for years now.

In December 2015, the West Virginia Board of Education responded to concerns raised by both lawmakers and members of the public over the standards and voted to repeal them. They were replaced with the current education standards taught in West Virginia schools – the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards.

These new standards were the result of an 8-month study led by state Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano who consulted with West Virginia teachers, higher education officials, as well as members of the public.

But during the 2016 state Legislative session, lawmakers were still concerned – saying the West Virginia College and Career Ready Standards were too similar to Common Core.

This year, lawmakers are attempting again to get rid of any remnants of Common Core with Senate Bill 524.

The bill prohibits Common Core based standards in West Virginia schools, and requires teachers to use two specific sets of standards in their place: math standards from California adopted in 1997 and English-Language Arts standards from Massachusetts adopted in 2001.

Republican Senator Patricia Rucker from Jefferson County is the bill’s lead sponsor and a former educator. She says it’s important West Virginia get rid of Common Core and bring in something that’s been nationally recognized and proven to work.

“Massachusetts is nationally recognized as one of the best school systems; California, same thing,” Rucker said, “Both of these standards are before Common Core. No one can say that it has any relationship to Common Core, so we are making the constituents happy.”

Another requirement in the bill is that these new standards be implemented for at least five years, starting on July 1, 2017. Rucker says that’s so that both teachers and students have continuity.

“I know administrators; they have been told to do this, this year, something else the next year, something else the next year; they want stability, so that’s one of the reasons the bill says, we’re going to keep these standards for five years,” she noted.

However, if any changes are proposed to the standards within that timeframe, a 60-day written comment period would be required and at least four public hearings in various locations around the state.

Surprisingly, after the years of heated debates over anything related to Common Core, there were no questions or discussion in committee Saturday. However, a handful of senators did vote not to advance the bill.

Senate Bill 524 now goes to the full chamber for consideration.