West Virginia Wesleyan College Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Marching Show Bands Championship To Be Held In Buckhannon

The World Association of Marching Show Bands is having its 2023 Championship in Buckhannon in Upshur County.

Seventeen bands will compete for the international title while three exhibition bands will also perform. Bands compete in areas of concert, field marching performance, drumline, and street parade.

“Buckhannon rolled their sleeves up and just worked hard to present the town and the infrastructure that we have to the international committee and convince them that Buckhannon would be the perfect place to host the 2023 World Association of Marching Show Bands competition” said Randy Sanders, president of the Buckhannon host committee.

This is the first time in six years the event is hosted in the United States and the first time hosted on the East Coast.

Countries represented are Canada, El Salvador, Germany, Honduras, Ghana, Poland, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, Hong Kong, Ireland, and Sweden.

Grammy Award winner Lee Greenwood, known for his song “God Bless the U.S.A.” will perform in the opening ceremony on July 19 and the U.S. Marine Drumline and Bugle Corps will perform for the official closing ceremony July 23 at 7pm.

The competition will take place July 17-24.

Community Care To Guarantee Jobs To WV Wesleyan Graduates

Community Care of West Virginia announced a partnership with West Virginia Wesleyan College to offer jobs to all new program graduates.

In a press conference Friday, West Virginia Wesleyan College announced a new Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, funded through a $1.2 million investment from Aetna Better Health of West Virginia and Community Care of West Virginia.

In addition, Community Care of West Virginia will support the program by offering job positions to each student who completes the program.

“This is a great opportunity for West Virginia Wesleyan to work with key partners to serve our community while providing a degree that will ensure a successful career path for our students,” said Dr. James Moore, interim president of West Virginia Wesleyan College. “Both Aetna and Community Care of West Virginia should be commended for making this great program possible.”

Aetna and Community Care of West Virginia collaborated to identify the greatest needs for the regions they serve and found that West Virginians need mental health care.

“A key part to Aetna’s mission is helping to build resources in the communities we serve,” said Todd White, CEO of Aetna Better Health of West Virginia. “West Virginia Wesleyan will be able to deliver the advanced education needed by organizations like Community Care of West Virginia to have the highest quality of healthcare professionals to serve patients.”

West Virginia’s low population density creates a unique set of challenges in caring for the population. Additionally, West Virginia has consistently witnessed the nation’s highest rate of drug overdose deaths. Once they’d identified the problem, the answer was clear: a higher education institution with a long history of advanced degrees in healthcare was needed to develop the bridge to a solution.

According to a press release, West Virginia significantly trails the nation in mental and behavioral healthcare providers. On average, the United States has at least one mental and behavioral healthcare provider for every 400 people, whereas West Virginia only has one for every 770 people.

“Community Care of West Virginia is proud of the role our organization is taking in this effort,” said Dr. Liam Condon, a psychologist with Community Care of West Virginia. “Our commitment to hire each graduate of Wesleyan’s new master’s program will help retain high-quality healthcare providers right here in the region where they are needed most for our patients.”

State Program Makes Med School Admissions Easier For Students By Waiving MCAT Test

A new program from West Virginia Wesleyan College and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine called “Go D.O.” aims to inspire more students to become doctors and make medical school more accessible.

“All things we do in admissions at West Virginia Wesleyan, we try to break down barriers,” said John Waltz, vice president for enrollment management at West Virginia Wesleyan.

Wesleyan, a private, nonprofit libreral arts college in Buchannon, West Virginia, and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, a public graduate institution in Lewisburg, announced a new collaboration last month, but the program has been in development for three years.

Waltz said the program makes medical school more accessible by waiving the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, which is a test required by almost all U.S. medical schools to determine eligibility into a medical program, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Wesleyan and the osteopathic school will instead look at a student’s academic achievements both in high school and while pursuing their undergraduate degree at Wesleyan.

“The student is able to come and do their undergraduate work knowing that as long as they meet the prerequisites along the way, that they are able to matriculate directly into medical school,” Waltz said. “That high level of success and that preparedness is really what was at the heart of what drove this partnership.”

High school seniors have until Dec. 1 to get priority consideration for the first group of this new program, but the schools will be accepting applications on a rolling basis after that. Each year, 10 students will be selected for the program.

Waltz said the program will be competitive.

An eligible high school senior must have at least a 3.75 GPA and earn at least a 30 on the ACT or a 1390 on the SAT. Students can gain entry into the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine after completion of program requirements and after a successful interview with the osteopathic school.

“Something we’re very, very interested in is students being able to study here, not only do their undergraduate, but their graduate work in the state of West Virginia,” Waltz said. “And to be able to contribute to our great state, hopefully in careers and in service, for years and years to come. That sustainability is really what’s most important to us.”

Waltz said through high school outreach, they’ve identified more than 860 eligible West Virginia high school seniors. Out-of-state students can also apply.

The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine is one of West Virginia’s three medical schools.

Marshall University and West Virginia University also offer similar pathways for high school and undergraduate students interested in pursuing medical school. However, only Marshall and the School of Osteopathic Medicine school have opportunities that waive the MCAT.

A WVU spokesperson told West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the MCAT is not waived in the university’s program, because “it is an important part of our holistic review process.”

May 7, 1972: Activist Lenna Lowe Yost Dies at 94

Activist Lenna Lowe Yost died on May 7, 1972, at age 94. The Marion County native and West Virginia Wesleyan College graduate had become involved in women’s issues as a young adult. For 10 years, she was president of the state chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU, as it’s known, principally opposed the consumption of alcohol but also supported social reforms for women.

During the 1910s, Yost became a leader in the West Virginia suffrage movement. She headed the state’s Equal Suffrage Association and lobbied both the West Virginia Legislature and Congress to adopt the 19th Amendment, which, in 1920, gave women the right to vote nationally.

Yost was the first woman to hold a variety of positions in the West Virginia Republican Party, and she directed the women’s division of the national Republican Party from 1930 to ’34. She represented the United States at two international congresses against alcoholism and lobbied to have the Federal Prison for Women built at Alderson. She also was the first woman to serve on the State Board of Education and on the West Virginia Wesleyan board of trustees.

April 20, 1939: Poet Laureate Irene McKinney Born in Belington

Poet Irene McKinney was born in Belington in Barbour County on April 20, 1939. She earned degrees from West Virginia Wesleyan College and West Virginia University and, in 1976, published her first book of poems, The Girl with the Stone in Her Lap. She served as director of creative writing at West Virginia Wesleyan and, in 1984, published another poetry collection entitled The Wasps and the Blue Hexagon. The next year, she won a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and other prestigious honors.

In 1993, Governor Gaston Caperton appointed McKinney as the state’s eighth poet laureate, succeeding her mentor, Louise McNeill.

She also served as poet-in-residence for the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and was the cofounder of Trellis, a poetry journal. Over the years, she published several other poetry collections, including Quick Fire and Slow Fire, Six O’clock Mine Report, Vivid Companion, and Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004.

Irene McKinney died in Buckhannon in 2012 at age 72. She was succeeded as poet laureate by Marc Harshman of Wheeling. A fund in McKinney’s memory has been established at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

July 31, 1932: Actor Ted Cassidy Born

Actor Ted Cassidy was born on July 31, 1932, in Pittsburgh, but he grew up in Philippi. By the time he was 11, Cassidy was already 6’1” and still growing—eventually reaching 6’9”.

After high school, he attended but didn’t graduate from West Virginia Wesleyan College. He then left West Virginia for a career in radio. Working as a staff announcer for a Dallas radio station, he provided on-the-scene coverage of John F. Kenney’s assassination and was one of the first to interview eyewitnesses. By the following year, Cassidy had moved to California to break into acting.

In 1964, Cassidy got the TV role that’d make him famous—and typecast him. His lankiness and deep voice made him a natural to play Lurch, the ghoulish but lovable butler on The Addams Family. Although The Addams Family lasted only two seasons, he’ll always be remembered as Lurch.After the show was canceled in 1966, Cassidy went on to appear in various other TV shows, including Star Trek, and provided voices for animated cartoons.

Ted Cassidy died in 1979 from complications following heart surgery. He was only 46.