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Kump House Pie Auction offers sweet surprises

Every year when the Kump Education Center Pie Auction planning starts, I am surprised by the endless creativity of our Board of Directors and local volunteers. The pies themselves are hidden treasures. That is what I like best about pies. Each one is a baker’s present offering something special wrapped inside a tasty pastry. They all make pies for the preservation of the historic Kump House. Once again, this year our resourceful and creative pie collector is Laura Santmyer, and she tells me she is planning on having 40 pies. Laura has a host of helpful friends who bake wonderful pies ...

Five ways to reduce leadership variance

Reducing variance has been a key focus of mine for many years. Notice I said many years. It shows that reducing variance is a never-ending journey. Is leadership variance always a bad thing? There are those situations when a leader may vary an approach seeking improvement. I call these operational trials. There are times when a situation arises where a process or action needs to not be followed. These are isolated or emergency situations. In general, reducing leadership variance is important and helpful. Why? Employees perform better when there is consistency, which is driven by ...

Huge changes in a short time

American politics continues to be determined by social media, whose tone remains reliably shrill. Republicans peddle philosophies that are not particularly conservative. Everything has been reduced to sentimentality, and core complaints are rooted in notions that are considered good because they are old. Conservatism at its best is based on ideas backed by reason and supported by science. Democrats may have their spells of ultra-sweet puerile thoughts, but on the whole, they want to move clumsily into the future. For both parties, Donald Trump remains a conundrum. Issues like abortion ...

Fox Forest foray set for Sunday

Join us for a Fox Forest foray starting at 1 p.m. this Sunday afternoon near the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) boat dock landing on Scotts Ford Road. This hike was organized by the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area (AFNHA) as part of a “Community Trail Talks” series. Hikers will walk through several sections of Fox Forest Wildlife Management Area on the improved trails. We will see the Tygart Valley River from the Overlook Trail and view Scott Hill homeplace from the High Overlook. Most of the land on the Overlook Trail was once owned by Cyrus H. ...

Democratic Party has led to Trump’s success

Ben Wattenberg and Richard Scammon, in their book “The Real Majority,” exposed the problem of the "New Politics" by describing the electorate as "unyoung, unblack, and unpoor." At the time, this description drew the fire and ire of liberals and the New Left. However, Richard Nixon's landslide in 1972 proved their point. But decades later, the Democratic party continues to re-work this formula; it has become an article of faith, or as Theodore White put it, a "liberal theology." Despite 54 years of change, the party still dreams of the party of the groovy people. Surprisingly, as ...

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ performances

Enjoy dinner and a special performance of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” performed by the Rustic Mechanicals at Graceland Inn at Davis & Elkins College at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 20. The Rustic Mechanicals are the only professional Shakespeare troupe in West Virginia, and they will bring their “Howl at the Moon” tour to various audiences throughout the state this summer. Such opportunities to see high-energy performances of Shakespeare plays are both fun and educational. As an advanced placement English teacher, I would look for summer theater experiences to ...