Weelunk Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Statewide Digital Publication Aims to Lift Up W.Va.

A new statewide, online publication went live today – Vandaleer.com. It pulls content from affiliated, localized online storytelling publications based around the state – the collective mission: share a new, positive narrative about and by West Virginians who want to celebrate what’s interesting and unique about the state.

Jason Koegler and a few of his friends moved back to West Virginia several years ago after leaving the state to pursue schooling and work elsewhere. Upon returning to be closer to family they decided they wanted to do something – specifically, to encourage others in their small hometown of Wheeling to do something to help revitalize the town. They created the website Weelunk.com to provide a platform for people to talk about what’s special about the town, what’s important to its people.

“When we started Weelunk, we didn’t have any thoughts or vision of going outside of Wheeling but what we realized is that Wheeling could only be as good as its state,” Koegler said.

In the almost two years since Weelunk was born, satellite websites have sprung up in Elkins, Huntington, Martinsburg, and soon the New River Gorge area, and Morgantown. Vandaleer (Vandalia + Mountaineer) is the umbrella site that pulls the best content as well as produces original content for statewide audiences, and far-flung West Virginians.

“It’s filling a void that the traditional media platforms kind of miss out on sometimes where it’s maybe not as worth their while to tell a story about a local group that’s making a difference,” Koegler said.

Published stories range from inspirational personal experiences to artistic expressions and constructive ideas about the future of the regions and towns in the state. Koegler says it’s a powerful tool for change. Koegler says political coverage on the website in Wheeling has helped usher in new, progressive leadership.

The site runs predominantly on volunteer labor.

“We have stories from 16-year-old John Marshall students to 86-year-old poets,”

Weelunk boasts of 250 volunteer contributors and millions of pageviews from all across the world. Koegler hopes to continue to grow the system and hear from more people throughout pockets of the state. He says at Vandaleer.com there’s a rolling, open call for stories, poetry, videos, or photos that celebrate the state.

Huntiful Next in Growing Number of Storytelling Sites

A group of Huntington residents are spearheading a local storytelling web site. It’s an idea that’s spreading all over the state.

Huntiful, that’s the name of a new site based in Huntington telling unique and positive stories about the Huntington area. Jessica Pressman works for the federal government during the day and along with a group of others helps run and provide material for the new site. She said it’s about showing that there are other things going on in the town that aren’t related to being the unhealthiest or having some of the worst problems with drugs.

“It’s basically a forum for us to tell our stories in our own voices,” Pressman said. “It’s just people who live here who have a passion about Huntington writing and telling their stories about their lives.”

The site is just the latest branch to grow from a state-wide, local story-telling endeavor that first sprouted in Wheeling.

Weelunk -Wheeling
Elkinite – Randolph County
MiBurg – Martinsburg

In May there will be one more, SyNRGetic, which serves the New River Gorge region. Jason Koegler, along with others, started Weelunk.
“We don’t want to stop at the five number, we would like everywhere to have their own site, because we feel that the great thing about these sites and what’s proven successful is that we’re not sending someone from Charleston to somewhere else to do a story,” said Koegler. “We’re collecting the stories from the people, from the souls of the town’s themselves and they’re bubbling up if you will.”

We don't want to stop at the five number, we would like everywhere to have their own site. – Jason Koegler, Weelunk Founder

That number five Koegler speaks of is an umbrella site that will feature content from each of the individual sites. It will be called Vandaleer and launch sometime in June.

Koegler says since Weelunk started in 2014 it’s had contributions from over 150 people.

Back in Huntington, Pressman works with 10-12 others on the Huntiful site. It’s still in its infancy, only having started a few weeks ago. One of those other contributors is an entrepreneur named Chris Wallace. He owns Brand Yourself in downtown Huntington. Wallace says the stories on Huntiful won’t be like those anyone else is telling.

“There is new and interesting stuff that’s popping up all the time and we’re also trying to come up with regular story ideas, there is so many places you can go and enjoy the outdoors, I think we’re going to be doing, every couple of weeks come up with a different hike and photos and maps,” Wallace said.

Huntiful is looking for contributors that can help tell Huntington’s story.

Community Website Weelunk Expands into Randolph County with Elkinite

Since its launch in November, the online community portal Weelunk has attracted web traffic from all 50 states in the U.S. and around the globe. The website serves as a platform for in-depth stories about Wheeling and also provides a forum for new ideas and community events.

Now the site’s creators have taken that formula and applied it to a similar project in Randolph County, called Elkinite.

“We just want to find stories that build people up and do things constructively. We don’t want to, we don’t want to tear people apart,” said Davis & Elkins College student Andrew Carroll. He’s one of Elkinite’s managers and content providers.

Carroll is also helping West Virginia Public Broadcasting provide coverage of this year’s summer workshops and festivities in Elkins at the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis & Elkins College.

Their Own Thing

Carroll said Elkinite doesn’t necessarily want to compete with traditional media outlets.

“They’ve got their own thing and it works for them. We’re not interested in that, we’re interested in our own thing,” he said. “But what we’ve recognized is that in these communities there’s a void where someone’s not telling a story that people would read and they would care about. And there’s also a void in the digital presence and the web presence. And so we’re just filling a market space that no one’s in.”

Weelunk co-founder and Elkinite mastermind Jason Koegler said the idea behind both sites is also to provide young people with an avenue to connect with their community using the technology they’re used to.

“The information that’s important to this generation in terms of culture, quality of life, inspiration, ideas, to do something, to take action, this is the void that we’re filling,” Koegler said.

The Idea with Ideas

Back in Elkins, Andrew Carroll said that one of the more unique aspects of Weelunk that Elkinite has replicated is the Ideas Section.

“And the idea with Ideas is someone can pitch their idea, but really write a plan for it and be constructive about it,” he said.

“And also with that, if someone has something negative they want to talk about, they can talk about it, but they need to offer a solution to it,” Elkinite co-manager Kate Reed said. “So we don’t want it to just be like, ‘We’re terrible. So, we have a drug problem,’ and that’s it. So what are we going to do about it?”

In her regular job, Reed is the alumni coordinator for Leadership West Virginia. She said at first she was apprehensive about taking on a project like Elkinite as a volunteer because of how public it is and she wasn’t sure how it would be received by the local community.

But she decided it was worth the risk.

“I get ticked off when people make fun of my town or think I’m uneducated or really attack the problems and stereotype us. So being part of something positive makes me feel good and I want to continue to be a part of it,” Reed said.

Kate Reed and Jason Koegler speak during the official launch of Elkinite on Tuesday, June 7, in Elkins.

Elkinite had a soft opening last week and officially launched on Tuesday, July 7.

Koegler said Weelunk provided a framework for what worked, but it’s the volunteers in Randolph County who are making Elkinite a success.

“They took that ball and ran with it. And actually, they’ve, in this past 10 days, have given us five things to consider for Weelunk that we’re considering changing or doing ourselves,” he said.

Plans To Expand

Koegler doesn’t want to stop with Weelunk and Elkinite. He said he is working with West Virginia Executive Magazine to extend the Weelunk model to other towns around the state.

“It would be great to have 10 of these up and running by this time next year,” Koegler said.

He said the plan is to also build a state-wide umbrella site.

“What it would do would pull content from its feeder sites, so like Elkinite and Weelunk and then what other cities come on board,” Koegler said.

Koegler said he’s already in talks with several other cities to explore starting new projects. He’s not ready to name all those places yet, but he did say the New River Gorge area is next on the list.

Weelunk.com: Do Something

Weelunk.com is a self-described “Wheeling-centric website that wants to serve sophisticated, local readers who care about their community,” and it’s is launching November 1^st. That’s according to the Weelunk Facebook page that was born a few weeks ago and has since been growing in popularity.

Wheeling is one of the oldest names in the state. It’s actually an anglo-fied Delaware Indian word: Weelunk— which means Place of the Skull, or Head. According to lore and historians, the land where Wheeling Creek and the Ohio meet was marked by native folks with a European’s head on a stake as a stark reminder of some heinous deed that occurred there. An ominous beginning. But today, people in Wheeling are reviving the word Weelunk, as part of a larger effort to revive the town.

Weelunker: Passionate Wheeling resident with a Wheeling-related message to share with Wheeling and the world.

Steve Burke and Jason Koegler at recent Weelunk event. Weelunk.com is the brainchild of several Wheeling residents, predominantly Koegler and Burke—old high school friends who both moved away and then found themselves home again and in a mood to reinvent their hometown.

Weelunker-in-Chief Jason Koegler has what he calls a “real” job with West Liberty University. But he’s been peddling hard to get Weelunk off the ground.

Koegler says there’s a real need for a community platform to connect all of the initiatives and activities that are happening all over the area. Weelunk is the idea that is crystalizing. So far, the three main objectives of the site

encouraging community dialogue (Weelunkers)
an all-encompassing, interactive Wheeling Calendar of Events
in-depth journalism

The idea began as an online newspaper to serve the Wheeling area. Perhaps that’s why the only paid employee so far is the news editor, local talk radio personality Steve Novotney.
Novotney is another home-grown Wheelonian. He says there’s been a need for unbiased, veteran journalism in Wheeling for some time.

“We’re gonna cherish the past, but focus on the future,” Novotney said. “You’re going to see that no longer in Wheeling is it passé to dream.”

So far, all other Weelunk employees are volunteers. They include marketing experts, web developers, graphic designers, party planners, and business men and women cohorts in general who all share one thing for sure in common: they are all invested in Wheeling’s future.