By Keri Brown
West Virginia has the nation’s highest ATV death rate. Eleven people died in ATV crashes last month, which was a record high in the state. A recent study takes a closer look at the costs of ATV accidents. Keri Brown reports.
Read story – ATV death rates
Local and national NAACP leaders say they do not support Saturday’s march that will call on prosecutors to file hate crimes charges in the Megan Williams case. Charleston Mayor Danny Jones says he doesn’t mind that the march will take place, but he wants people to be aware of the background of the march’s leader. Mayor Jones speaks with Beth Vorhees.
Ric Griffith has been carving thousands of pumpkins to display at his home for about 30 years. Beth Vorhees spoke to him about why and how he does it.
By Greg Collard
An exotic animal expert helping in the search for a male African lion in Greenbrier County now doubts it’s on the loose. John Forga has been helping look for a lion since bowhunter Jim Shortridge reported seeing one last week.
“The gentleman (Shortridge) seems real incredible. He doesn’t seem to be a fruitcake at all. But at this point in the game we’re pretty skeptical, because everybody in Greenbrier County is looking over the banks now. Every day that goes on and we can’t spot him, it doesn’t look good as far as being able to locate him. So, yeah, I think we’re a little skeptical now. It’s hard to tell what the gentleman could have seen.”
Forga runs Tiger Mountain Refuge, a shelter for exotic animals in Rainelle. He has two people who have spent the last three nights in the woods around Cold Knob Mountain listening for the reported lion and trying to lure it with raw chicken. Forga says he’ll have a team spend the next four nights in the area as well.
“In the event that an African lion is walking around out there, it would have had to have come from a zoo, a private collection or from a circus or someone like that. There’s very few places an African lion can turn up from. Actually, we’ve been in contact with everybody around from probably a 400 to 500-mile radius that keeps these sorts of animals, and we’ve yet to be able to find anybody that’s admitted to having anything escape or being turned loose.”
Forga is working with the Greenbrier County Animal Control office and the state Department of Environmental Protection in trying to locate lion. Forga already has one male African lion that he says weighs about 600 pounds.
Samuel Clements once remarked, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” And that may be the case for Fenton Glass.
In August, the company announced that it was shutting down its Wood County plant. But now there is some hope that the company’s days are not numbered. Keri Brown reports.
This week, reporter Scott Finn leaves for China to cover the trade delegation that Gov. Manchin is leading to that country. He talks to Beth Vorhees on West Virginia Morning about the stories he expects to follow.
By Keri Brown
kbrown@wvpubcast.org
In August, Fenton Glass announced that it’s closing operations at its Wood County plant. Since then, there has been a resurgence of interest in the glass. And that has sparked hope among company officials to find a way to keep making glass in Williamstown.While the future of Fenton remains uncertain, this much we do know. It’s played an important part of the states glassmaking heritage for more than 100 years. Keri Brown takes us ona tour. A television version of this story ran Oct. 4, 2007, on Outlook. Here’s the radio version.
This week’s program includes an segments on more efforts to get hate crime charges filed against defendants charged in the rape and kidnapping of Megan Willliams, Hispanic immigration in Kentucky and an interview Anne Pope, the federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission.
“Citizen” is part 1 of filmmaker Chip Hithcock’s documentary, “Bridgeport to Baghdad: West Virginia‘s 459th at Home and at War.” Part 1 aired on the West Virginia PBS program “Outlook” on Oct. 25, 2007.
By Keri Brown
A Wellsburg man is on a mission to solve the case of a 205-year-old witch trial. Michael Traubert has been researching the case of a Brooke County woman accused of witchcraft in 1802. He wants to use the trial to make his hometown a tourist attraction.. Keri Brown reports.
Read story – Witch Trial
By Beth Vorhees
Dan Whetzel likes to travel to out-of-the-way places on the West Virginia and Maryland border. He’s a social studies and history teacher in Cumberland, Maryland. He has a special interest in the area’s once-thriving coal towns that have been abandoned. Whetzel likes to look at the towns’ past and save what’s left. What’s left in many cases are just the memories of these ghostly coal towns. He spoke to Beth Vorhees for our program Inside Appalachia.
By Beth Vorhees
Ann Pope, Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, is in Charleston for the ARC’s annual conference. This year’s conference focuses on water and sewer infrastructure projects, and expanding rural access to broadband networks.
By Beth Vorhees
Angela Vance, the Associate State Director of AARP in West Virginia, says the Legislature needs to pass a data breach law to protect citizens from credit fraud. She joined Beth Vorhees on West Virginia Morning.
By Scott Finn
sfinn@wvpubcast.org
Next week, reporter Scott Finn is leaving for China. He’ll be covering Gov. Manchin’s Trade Mission to the country for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
To prepare for his trip, he spoke with Mark Carter, vice president of Morgantown-based Swanson Industries. Carter talks to Scott Finn about the success his company is having in China, and what he’s learned about Chinese culture.
Tonight, our television program Outlook begins a special focus on the war.You won’t hear from generals or politicians. Just West Virginia soldiers and families affected by their decisions. Our series is called “Bridgeport to Baghdad: West Virginia’s 459th at Home and at War.”
The 459th was in Iraq for one year. Filmmaker Chip Hitchcock spent a year-and-a-half collecting stories of the 459th. He spoke to Beth Vorhees on West Virginia Morning.
By Cecelia Mason
cmason@shepherd.edu
Martinsburg has about two dozen buildings and neighborhoods listed on the National Register of Historic Places. If the Berkeley County Historical Society is successful, two more neighborhoods will be added by the end of this year. One of those neighborhoods will be among the first in West Virginia to be registered based on the growth in popularity of the automobile.
Read Story – Historic neighborhoods
By Beth Vorhees
bvorhees@wvpubcast.org
A computer tape with personal information including Social Security numbers of 200,000 public employees is missing. State Department of Administration spokeswoman Diane Holley says measures are being taken to keep the information secure.
By Scott Finn
Last month we brought you the horrific story of Megan Williams, the young black woman from Charleston who police say was raped and tortured for days in a Logan County trailer.
All six defendants are white, and Williams said they used racial slurs against her as they assaulted her. So far, state and federal prosecutors have declined to pursue hate crime charges in the case.
A group called Black Lawyers for Justice is representing the Williams family. The group’s leader met yesterday with federal prosecutors, but he wasn’t happy with what he heard.
The group is organizing a protest through the streets of Charleston for November third. But city officials are requiring a one-million dollar insurance policy before they can march.
By Beth Vorhees
bvorhees@wvpubcast.org
Last Friday, a Harrison County jury delivered its final verdict in a class-action lawsuit against DuPont. Jurors ruled DuPont must pay $196 million in punitive damages for pollution at the site of an old zinc plant in the community of Spelter.
This was on top of two other verdicts against DuPont in the same case. One awarded $55 million in damages, another ordered DuPont to fund a medical monitoring program for about 7,000 residents. DuPont will appeal the verdicts. (Read DuPont’s statement here).
Plaintiffs attorneys argued that toxins dumped at the site such as cadmium, arsenic and lead have put the health of local residents at risk. 10 plaintiffs filed the lawsuit. One of them was Waunona Crouser. She grew up in the area and now lives about a mile from Spelter. She decided to get involved in the lawsuit because her husband died 14 years ago. She spoke to Beth Vorhees on West Virginia Morning.
By Anna Sale
There were headlines across the country last week about schools and MRSA, a potentially fatal staph infection. Some principals in West Virginia have responded with vigilance to contain germs. But as they bring on extra custodians and douse desktops with bleach, some caution that the special effort may be more about public relations than public health.
Read story – Staph cleanups
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