It is the second time the band will participate in the historic parade which first took place in 1924. “I am, for one, so excited to be representing the state and this region of the country once again on such a big national stage,” Band Director Cheldon Williams said.
It is the second time the band will participate in the historic parade which first took place in 1924.
Band Director Cheldon Williams said Macy’s Parade officials surprised the band with the news right before the WVU football game on Saturday.
“I am, for one, so excited to be representing the state and this region of the country once again on such a big national stage,” Williams said. “It brings me a sense of pride to expose the students to more of the world, having them see a larger portion of the world, and having them see the world through music.”
The WVU Mountaineer Marching Band was one of ten marching bands selected for the Macy’s Parade out of hundreds of applications across the country.
“For more than 100 years, the Mountaineer Marching Band has entertained audiences, from hometown halftime shows to parade routes and venues across the country, representing their state with pageantry and style,” said Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade creative producer, Wesley Whatley. “The Macy’s Parade Band Committee is proud to welcome back the talented students of West Virginia University to the Big Apple to march in the 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”
Macy’s presented band members with a $10,000 kickoff fundraising check to begin their preparations for next year’s parade.
Monday marks the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Most of us have an “I remember where I was” story from that day of watching the planes crash into buildings and the horror we all felt.
This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Most of us have an “I remember where I was” story from that day of watching the planes crash into buildings and the horror we felt. The world changed that day.
Nearly 3,000 people died in New York City, Washington, D.C. and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
To commemorate the day, several West Virginia Public Broadcasting staffers contributed to this audio postcard.
Annie Thompson, media sales associate: I’m sitting there alone, looking at images on the TV and listening to what was going on. It filled me with terror and emotion of what had happened. And also disbelief, just not believing that this could happen in America.
Bill Lynch, producer of Inside Appalachia: We sat around the radio in the office and listened for updates. And then I tried to call my ex-wife in Baltimore, I was worried about my kids. Of course, I couldn’t get through. The phone lines were jammed up with people like me calling family and friends or whatever. I worried a lot. I didn’t hear anything from my ex until maybe a day or so later. I think she might have sent me an email just to let me know things were okay. She was scared. It was like that everywhere. I think we were all scared and wondering what was going to happen next.
Emily Rice, Appalachia Health News reporter: Being a kid from West Virginia, my only assumption was that a coal mine or power plant must be on fire. I ran downstairs to ask my best friend’s mom what was happening, and she sat us down with bowls of cereal to try to explain. She said some very bad people had done some very bad things and hurt people in a place called New York City. It would take months and years for my child brain to comprehend the tragedy. I remember when the death toll was released and wondering how to quantify 3,000 people’s lives lost.
Curtis Tate, energy and environment reporter: On that crystal clear day of September 11, 2001, I was hardly on the front lines of the nation’s pain and sorrow. Yet, I still felt that. I was a 22-year-old journalism student at the University of Kentucky. Because of a late night shift on my part-time retail job, I didn’t even know what had happened until I found out why my midday class was canceled.
I did, however, worry instantly about my 16-year-old sister. Melanie was a page in the House of Representatives in Washington. On an ordinary Tuesday, she would have been at her page school in the Library of Congress before dawn. And then by mid-morning performing her regular duties across the street at the Capitol. One of them was raising a U.S. flag above the House chamber. I never thought my sister, whose life was probably saved by the passengers and crew of Flight 93, would face a breast cancer diagnosis at age 32. And with a young child, I never thought we’d lose her to that cancer at 34, leaving her daughter and the rest of us to move forward in a world we never thought we’d have to contemplate. Yes, 9/11 changed all of us who are old enough to remember, we learned to conceive what we could not conceive. And that we should never take anything for granted.
Kristi Morey, director of Marketing: I do vividly remember seeing the first plane hit the tower. And you know, like everyone just wondering how could that happen? How could that happen? And so, I continued watching and then after the second plane hit, I remember just getting really emotional and calling my mother because that’s what we do. Right? We call our mom and say, “What’s going on? Is this the end of the world?”
Visitors remember those lost on 9/11The 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon looks like the tails of airplanes. One crashed into the building. Tood Beamer, the man who famously said “Let’s roll,” on Flight 93 is memorialized in stone in New York.
Eric Douglas, news director: The Pentagon is a beautiful memorial, especially in the evening, the way it’s lit and the flags waving. And just the hush in the air. The Ground Zero Memorial is much the same way. It feels like holy ground. It feels like an instant wave of reverence washes over you because you know what it represents, you know the lives lost, you know the terror that those people felt and that all of us felt. It’s something that I hope we never do forget.
Caroline MacGregor, assistant news director: I remember my flight touched down in Amsterdam. And as I walked through the terminal of a familiar airport, everything suddenly seemed different. People were different, that sense of dread and unknowing hitting the world standing in line to board the KLM flight to Detroit. I remember security at the gate was at an all-time high. There was a sense of collective consciousness; everyone was numb, confused, but on high alert, looking sideways at their fellow passengers with an abnormal level of suspicion.
It was a surreal experience as we were accompanied by air marshals for the trip home. Landing in America, well, that was when I realized the world had really changed and travel would never be the same again. But more than that, so many people who met horrific deaths at the hands of people who hate, a memory one wants to forget, but should never forget.
Chris Schulz, education reporter: It really was such an inflection point in all of our lives and especially in the D.C. area. Very soon after that, we had security scare after security scare from the anthrax attacks to the D.C. sniper. And it was several years of very heightened concern, very heightened attention to security, as the war on terror developed and all those things came to be but even to this day, you know, the the security that we go through at airports and the military and pseudo military presence that we see on public transportation. All of that is a result of what happened that day.
Maggie Holley, director of Education: I was attending college at Morehead State University and as I walked down campus toward my morning class, I quickly realized something was wrong. Everyone was in a hushed rush or a state of confusion. As we were all ushered back to the dorms, it was announced that all classes were canceled for the rest of the day. But it wasn’t until I made it back to my room that I saw what had happened. I will never forget the horrific images on the news. My three roommates and I took turns calling our parents to check in. And to confirm what we were seeing on the 24-inch television screen was an actual reality. The world was forever changed.
Chris Barnhart, director of Video Production: I think it is important to recognize that it wasn’t a sense of patriotism or rah rah America, that I have to go off and fight this war. I enlisted before the war started. But I think that moment, those hours in the morning of September 11, 2001, part of my focus overall into we’re not alone, we’re all one people. What happens three states away impacts me here at home.
So on 9/11, I grew up. I wasn’t just a 26-year-old college student drop out over and over again until I finally graduated. I was somebody who was joining a purpose that was bigger than himself. While 9/11 created a lot of fog and confusion and fear in the world at large, I think for me, it provided focus and direction. And while I wish that it never happened, I think that it was a moment in our history where we can look upon it and go, “What have you done since?” as opposed to “What would you have done instead?”
Gov. Jim Justice has ordered state and U.S. flags at state facilities be flown at half-staff from dawn to dusk Monday. Justice also requests that all West Virginians observe a moment of silence Monday at 8:46 a.m. to honor the innocent victims who perished on September 11, 2001.
Bail was set at $200,000 Sunday for a homeless man from West Virginia who was charged with placing two devices that looked like pressure cookers in a New York City subway station.
Larry Kenton Griffin II of Bruno, West Virginia, appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court before Judge Keisha Espinal, who set the bail and ordered Griffin to return to court Friday.
A message seeking comment was left with Griffin’s lawyer, Michael Croce.
The court appearance came a day after Griffin’s arrest and two days after Friday morning’s commute was disrupted by a police investigation that began after two large cooking pots were spotted at Manhattan’s Fulton subway station.
The incident inconvenienced thousands of commuters who use multiple subway lines that converge at the busy station next to the World Trade Center site, where a heavy police presence exists during every busy morning or evening commute since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The 26-year-old Griffin was charged with two counts of placing a false bomb . He was arrested Saturday in the Bronx after photographs of Griffin and the pots were distributed widely by law enforcement authorities.
A criminal complaint said Griffin knew the pots “would appear to be a bomb, destructive device, explosive and hazardous substance under circumstances in which it was likely to cause public alarm and inconvenience.”
The complaint said Griffin was seen on video pushing a silver shopping cart at West 16th Street and 7th Avenue at 5:56 a.m.
It said he took a rice cooker out of the shopping cart at the Fulton Street station 40 minutes later and kicked it toward an exit in front of an elevator.
The complaint said police Officer Joseph Nailes saw two rice cookers, including the one by the elevator, about a half hour later.
A third rice cooker was found at 6:40 a.m. Friday by a police detective on the sidewalk at West 16th Street and 7th Avenue, the complaint said.
West Virginia authorities have said Griffin has been arrested in the state at least three times in the past eight years, including a 2017 arrest on charges alleging he sent obscene material to a minor.
Tara Brumfield, Griffin’s cousin, told a Huntington, West Virginia, television station that he is a good person who has been dealing with mental health issues.
Alluding to the rice cookers, she said Griffin has a habit of picking up items in one place and putting them down in another.
Many rice cookers look like pressure cookers, which use pressure to cook food quickly — a function that has been used to turn them into bombs.
At the Boston Marathon in 2013, a pair of Islamic extremists detonated two pressure cookers packed with explosives, killing three people and injuring hundreds more.
In September 2016, a pressure-cooker bomb went off in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 30 people.
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 32 year history and shares their memories and songs with our late-night listeners.
If you’re a fan of live performance radio (and, let’s face it, who isn’t?), stay up late Saturday July 25 and Sunday July 26 for some spectacular sets on Mountain Stage After Midnight.
First up is a September 2006 show at the Paramount Theater in Bristol, Tennessee. We’ll hear from Darrell Scott, Ollabelle, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Roni Stoneman and Reagan Boggs.
Credit Mountain Stage
/
Mountain Stage traveled up to New York City for this May 2007 show.
We’ll also talk a walk down memory lane with a May 2007 show at New York City’s Town Hall with special appearances from Joan Osborne, David Bromberg & Angel Band, Nellie McKay, Toby Lightman and The Roches.
Have our shows given you wanderlust? Well then, check out our live show schedule and be a part of our next recording! You can also keep up with our travels on social media (find and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram). And if want Larry and the Mountain Stage crew to bring the party to you, contact your local public radio station and request the show be recorded in your neck of the woods.
The Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown will, for the first time, take one of its world premieres to Off-Broadway in New York City.
In August, CATF finished up its 24th season, but that wasn’t quite the end. To its surprise, the festival was invited to transfer one of this season’s productions to New York City’s Off-Broadway venue, 59E59 Theaters. The play chosen wasUncanny Valley by Thomas Gibbons.
Uncanny Valley is set in the near future and portrays the relationship between Julian, an artificial intelligence being, and Claire, a neuroscientist tasked with teaching him how to become “human.”
This is the first time in the Festival’s 24 year history that it will move one of its Shepherdstown productions as-is to a new venue.
“It’s a really thrilling opportunity,” said Ed Herendeen, the founder and producing director of the Contemporary American Theater Festival, “You know we’ve had several of our plays produced in New York…and several of our plays have been produced around the country at regional theaters, but this is the very first time one of our productions will transfer to New York City.”
Herendeen says this opportunity wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for the success of the festival and its location.
“We are passionate about our geography. We really, really believe that place matters, and in many ways, the success of the Contemporary American Theater Festival is directly related to our geography; the eastern panhandle, Shepherdstown, the state of West Virginia. So this is going to give and shine a positive light on our state.”
Uncanny Valley by Thomas Gibbons will be presented in New York City between October 2-26.
To learn more about the play, you can visit the CATF website or watch this teaser trailer from the Contemporary American Theater Festival’s Vimeo page.
