Tim Armstead, chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, declared May 'Treatment Court Month' to recognize an alternative to incarceration that addresses substance use disorder.
Entrepreneur Donald Franklin Duncan was born in Rome, Ohio, on June 8, 1893, but spent his childhood in Huntington.
He left Huntington in his mid-teens and became a successful salesman for the Brock Candy Company in Chicago during World War I. In 1920, he introduced Good Humor ice cream to the world.
While in San Francisco in the late 1920s, Duncan saw a common Filipino toy known as a yo-yo, which means “come-come” in the Tagalog language. He bought out the toy’s manufacturer, modified the top, substituted a slip-string of Egyptian fiber, and hired Filipino natives to demonstrate the toy across the country. Duncan’s yo-yo became wildly popular. In 1962, its peak sales year, the Duncan Yo-Yo Company sold 18 million yo-yos and spinning tops. He owned the trademark on the word yo-yo from 1930 to 1965, when a federal appeals court ruled that the word was part of the common language.
With his profits, he founded the Duncan Parking Meter Corporation, which at one point made 80 percent of all meters sold in the world.
Donald Duncan died in Los Angeles in 1971 at age 77.
Following Cabell County and Huntington’s loss of their opioid lawsuit, the localities appealed that decision. Now the state supreme court is involved, and the city and the county have filed a 40-page brief with the court - asking it to see things their way.
On this West Virginia Week, Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for the state’s educational system. We’ll also learn more about a group of organizations asking the state Supreme Court to side with Cabell County and Huntington in their lawsuit against opioid distributors. And we’ll hear about a South Charleston landfill listed as a Superfund site.
Real estate developers who construct housing units in the Huntington area are now eligible for a tax credit through a West Virginia Department of Commerce program.