Local News & Events in Jefferson County WV
One hundred years ago, underneath the Old Opera House in Charles Town, locals and tourists danced the night away beside a crystal-clear lake inside a cavern filled with orchestral tones. Today, the Lakeland Caverns cave is quiet, all entries sealed off from the public. Read the Full Story >>
For the first article in this series, we invited Danny Chiotos to research and address some questions about the nature of the specific solar generation project that initiated the request for proposed zoning amendment ZTA 19-03. Read the Full Story >>
In 2007, Diana Wall found herself called to a mission. Working with Community Combined Ministries, she founded a program to source, assemble and distribute food packages through the Jefferson and Berkeley County School Districts. Kidz Power Pacs (KPP for short) is designed to provide children food for weekends and school breaks, filling a gap not served by weekday, in-school nutrition programs funded by the government. Read the Full Story >>
For community services organizations, the pandemic & economic crisis have forced drastic changes to operations and funding - at the same time they are called to meet needs on a scale they’ve never experienced. Read the Full Story >>
I do not hate Trump. I am appalled by him. There is a difference. I see Trump as a massive and dangerous symptom of a political disease that has been festering and growing in this country for most of my adult life. Ideological extreme partisanship, now fueled by social media, is as bad for our political well-being as the forest fires in Australia were bad for the entire ecology. Read the Full Story >>
I tend to speak about my origins as if I was from a foreign country, and not from rural West Virginia. I grew up in Green Bank, West Virginia, at the center of the federally mandated National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ), where interference like cell phones, wireless internet, and other devices are legally regulated. Read the Full Story >>
If you're a regular customer at Four Seasons Books in (116 W. German St., Shepherdstown), you can probably recall a time you were looking for an obscure book from childhood, or the perfect gift for your cousin's best friend's little brother's wife who you don't know very well (but you think she's into history), or a last-minute birthday gift for your twelve-year-old niece who "doesn't really like to read," but you really wish she'd start—so you came to the independent bookstore on German Street to ask Kendra Goldsborough, once-manager and now-owner, for help. And with psychic powers akin to the chocolatier in the film “Chocolat,” she retrieved the exact title you needed within minutes. Read the Full Story >>
What does it mean to be sober? Do you have to be serious all of the time? What about fun—can you have any fun? There is a stigma surrounding addiction, recovery, and sobriety that has not been fully dealt with in our society. If, as a society, we are unable to talk about something, then Read the Full Story >>
When someone was leaving rehab—we called it graduating—we would all gather in the great room for a goodbye ceremony. We would sit in a circle on dinged-up metal folding chairs, all of us a little too fidgety, a little too caffeinated, feeling something that was hard to pin down—some mix of worry and jealousy and Read the Full Story >>
West Virginia University President Gordon Gee spoke with juniors and seniors at Jefferson and Washington High Schools last month. While extolling the benefits of an education at WVU, the overall message he delivered is one that resonates with many working in education today: education beyond high school is more important than ever. Gee made it Read the Full Story >>
Over a year ago, four local women contacted the Jefferson County Commission to request the removal of a plaque by the front door of the Jefferson County Courthouse honoring Confederate soldiers (read more here). Placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1986 to commemorate their ancestors, the plaque reads: 1861-1865 In honor and memory of the Confederate soldiers of Jefferson County, who served in the War Between the States. Erected by the Leetown Chapter #231 United Daughters of the Confederacy. Erected May 25, 1986. Read the Full Story >>
They say when you've been climbing long enough, eventually you'll know someone who has died in a climbing-related accident. Read the Full Story >>
One of the county’s most unusual historic farms will soon be added to the National Register of Historic Places: Wild Goose Farm. Built for Rezin Davis (R.D.) Shepherd in the mid-1840s, the Greek Revival-style farmhouse was remodeled in the Colonial Revival c.1911 and stylistically demonstrates Shepherd’s ties to New Orleans. Read the Full Story >>
Today, there are more than 48.8 million Americans (including 13 million children and 5 million seniors) struggling with food insecurity, according to Feeding America and the USDA. Poverty in America is the leading cause, with more than 40 million people currently living below the poverty line (over half end up being children—many of whom depend on schools for a daily meal). Read the Full Story >>
Mike Chalmers is a consulting editor and former editor-in-chief (2016-2020) for The Observer. — If we’re going to truly address the addiction epidemic, we’ve got to be brutally honest about it. I’ll go first. When we took over at the new Observer, we knew we wanted to place ourselves firmly within the emerging conversation surrounding Read the Full Story >>
