Tag: Ritchie County

W.Va. 911 Centers File Complaint Against Frontier Communications

The agency tasked with operating West Virginia’s 911 centers has filed a complaint against Frontier West Virginia Inc.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission was asked Wednesday to investigate a complaint against Frontier Communications that 10 emergency call centers were unable to field 911 calls for up to 10 hours during a three day period last month.

According to the complaint the WVE911 Council, the umbrella agency that operates 911 centers in the state, alleges that within the past 24 months, several Public-Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) within the state have experienced lengthy outages of 911 service.

The most recent outage was from Nov. 28 through Nov. 30 where Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Doddridge, Ritchie, Harrison, Taylor and Mingo County residents were unable to call 911 for up to 10 hours.

Dean Meadows, executive director for the council, filed the complaint and said the telephone provider has inadequate backup to ensure telephone service to many centers when telephone lines are subject to vandalism or bad weather.

Meadows’ complaint asked the Commission to ensure that Frontier provides proper backup services so “no resident will ever lose the ability to call 911 for emergency assistance.”

“We’re really at our wit’s end about what ought to be done,” Meadows said in a press release.

February 12, 1901: Congressman Jacob Blair Dies at 79

Congressman Jacob Blair died in Utah, on February 12, 1901, at age 79. He was born in Parkersburg in 1821 and orphaned at a young age. He studied law under his uncle John Jay Jackson Sr., was admitted to the bar, and then elected prosecuting attorney of Ritchie County.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Blair was elected as a pro-Union congressman from Virginia, representing what is now northwestern West Virginia. He was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives on New Year’s Eve 1862, when he and two congressional colleagues met at the White House with President Abraham Lincoln regarding West Virginia’s potential admission to the Union.

When they left the White House, Lincoln still hadn’t made up his mind. Eager for an answer, Blair entered the White House the next morning through an open window and was told the president would indeed approve West Virginia statehood. Thus, Blair was likely the first West Virginian to learn the news.

Jacob Blair was reelected to Congress twice more before being appointed minister to Costa Rica. He spent his last 25 years in Wyoming and Utah.

May 20, 1983: Basketball Coach, Author Clair Bee Dies at 87

On May 20, 1983, basketball coach and author Clair Bee died at age 87. He was a native of Pennsboro in Ritchie County but grew up in Grafton.

He became a coaching legend at Long Island University in the 1930s. Bee led the Blackbirds to 43 straight wins, two undefeated seasons, and National Invitational Tournament titles in 1939 and ’41. He resigned in 1951 after a point-shaving scandal implicated three of his players. During his career, Bee won nearly 83 percent of his games—still an NCAA Division I record. He also developed the 1-3-1 zone.

Although his coaching days ended on a sad note, Clair Bee had another career ahead of him. In 1948, he wrote Touchdown Pass about fictional high school football player Chip Hilton. Amazingly, the book sold more than 125,000 copies. He published 23 more books about Hilton, which taught young readers to be honest and to obey their parents and coaches. The stories were set in the town of Valley Falls, a fictional version of a real place near Grafton.

Clair Bee was later elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Mobile Mammograms Offered in New West Virginia Bus

A new mobile mammography vehicle will be offering screenings in West Virginia later this week.

The 45-foot vehicle called Bonnie’s Bus will visit Ritchie County on Friday, a service of West Virginia University Medicine and the WVU Cancer Institute. The bus will be at the Ritchie Regional Health Center in Harrisville from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call (304) 699-0947 for an appointment.

Mammograms will be billed to private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid if available. Mammograms for women without insurance will be covered by the West Virginia Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program or through special grant funds from the West Virginia affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Bonnie’s Bus is provided through a gift from Jo and Ben Statler and is named after Jo Statler’s late mother, Bonnie Wells Wilson.

Public Utility Property Values in West Virginia Increase

West Virginia’s natural gas counties are the winners and coalfield counties are the losers in the state’s latest assessment of the value of properties owned by public utilities.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail  says a report presented to the Board of Public Works on Tuesday shows utility property values increased by 36 percent in Doddridge County in the past year. Ritchie and Tyler counties each saw a 16 percent increase, while property values in Taylor County rose by 9 percent.

In the southern coalfields, utility property values fell by 10 percent in Boone County, 8 percent in McDowell County and 7 percent in both Logan and Wyoming counties.

Statewide, the assessed value of utility properties rose by $530 million to more than $10 billion.

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