File photo
Randolph County Board of Education members, from left, Ed Daniels, Janie Newlon and Rachel Burns listen during a lengthy public hearing at the Elkins High School Theatre.

No. 8

Oct. 29

By Edgar Kelley

Staff Writer

ELKINS — The Randolph County Board of Education voted against Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly’s recommendations to close and consolidate two schools during a nearly four-hour public hearing Tuesday night.

Both Coalton Elementary and Midland Elementary will remain open after votes from the BOE swung in both schools’ favor. The Board voted 3-2 against the closing of Midland and 4-1 against the closing of Coalton.

BOE President Rachel Burns and fellow members Ed Daniels and Sherri Collett voted against closing Midland. Dr. Phil Chua and Janie Newlon voted for Dilly’s recommendation. Chua was the lone BOE member who voted for the closure and consolidation of Coalton.

The crowd in attendance at the Elkins High School Theatre erupted in applause after the votes, which were taken just after 9 p.m.

The BOE voted Oct. 8 to close Harman K-12 School and North Elementary School. Beginning next year, students from those schools will be sent to Jennings Randolph Elementary School, Elkins Middle School and Elkins High School.

On Oct. 14, a public hearing and vote on the closure of Pickens K-12 School was canceled approximately 90 minutes before it was slated to take place. The Superintendent announced on social media that the hearing had been canceled following “new information related to funding, as well as ongoing community effort that may support keeping Pickens open for an additional year.”

Students from Coalton Elementary and Midland Elementary would have been transferred to Third Ward Elementary and Beverly Elementary.

A large crowd gathered at EHS Tuesday night to speak out against the proposal.

After the fourth and final public delegation session of the evening, where members of the community were allowed three minutes each to speak, the BOE and Dilly decided to move on to the voting process.

“Does the Board want to take a few minutes or go right into the vote?” Burns asked. “It’s up to you guys, whatever you would like to do.”

After the BOE members agreed to proceed, Burns said, “I would like to remind everyone, I know we have a lot of people in here, and there is a lot of nervousness and excitement. If we could try to, until everything is voted on and complete, to try and keep the interruptions to a minimum. Because we do have a couple things to vote on. We want to be clear and respectful and make sure our minutes get recorded well.”

Section 6 of the meeting’s agenda included the votes for the two schools, along with a vote to approve a Waiver Request and an Amendment of the Comprehensive Education Facilities Plan.

Anger asked Dilly about the two end items and he said neither would have to be voted on if his recommendation wasn’t approved. The BOE then voted on the fate of both schools, and cheers rang out after supporters learned that their respective schools would remain open.

Jones

No. 7

Oct. 10

By Taylor McKinnie

Staff Writer

ELKINS — The former pastor of the Summit Church in Elkins is facing a new felony charge after police allegedly found sexually explicit content involving a juvenile on his cellphone, including an AI-generated image of the alleged victim.

Kevin Curtis Jones, 33, has been charged with one count of distribution and exhibiting of material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit activity, a felony.

Jones was first arrested and charged with one count of soliciting a minor via computer, a felony, on Oct. 1.

Jones is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on two separate $50,000 cash-only bonds set by Randolph County Magistrates Benjamin Shepler and Michael Dyer.

According to the newest criminal complaint, filed by Deputy and Task Force Officer D.A. Cale with the Barbour County Sheriff’s Office and the Mountain Region Drug And Violent Crime Task Force, on Oct. 1, Cale issued a search warrant for digital evidence from Jones’ cellular devices.

Cale allegedly located several images of a juvenile on Jones’ cellphone, the complaint states. The images depicted the alleged victim “in (their) underwear with (their) arms shrugged.” Cale writes that, in each of the known images of the alleged victim, the alleged victim was wearing different color underwear. He writes that one of the photos has a text overlay depicting, “Does this Match?”

Though the alleged victim is no longer a juvenile, the timestamps on the images allegedly found on Jones’ cellphone show that the alleged victim was under 18 years old when the photos were taken, the complaint states.

A separate photo was allegedly located on Jones’ cellphone of the alleged victim in a bathing suit, according to the compliant. The photo was formatted as a JPEG and was timestamped March 3, 2025 at 5:48 p.m.

Cale writes in the complaint that the next image after the swimsuit photo allegedly has the exact same timestamp and is believed to be a “computer-generated AI” image of the alleged victim “exposing” private parts.

“Pastor Kevin Jones was in possession of this image,” Cale wrote in the complaint.

According to the first criminal complaint against Jones, filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, Cale assisted Cpl. C. Parks, also with the Barbour Sheriff’s Office, with a soliciting investigation involving Jones.

Parks told Cale he was “investigating Pastor Kevin Jones for soliciting a minor with a computer,” the complaint states. The alleged victim was an attending member of the Summit Church in Elkins. Cale applied for a search warrant in Randolph County to seize relevant cellular devices, flash drives, storage devices, computers, etc.

On that same day, Cale located Jones in an RV at the Smokey Bottom Camp Ground, off Route 33, the complaint states. A “large amount” of cellular devices and storage devices were seized. Cale also made contact with the alleged victim, who came out of the RV to speak with him.

The alleged victim stated that Jones was their pastor and that they recalled an event where they and other juveniles went to Jones’ house in Randolph County around Christmas of 2023, the complaint states. The alleged victim told Cale that Jones began communicating with them over the phone about being in a “clandestine relationship” with the alleged victim once they turned 18.

According to the complaint, Jones “is the pastor of Summit Church… where the (alleged) victim attends, making (Jones) a person of trust over the victim.” Cale writes that he explained to the alleged victim what solicitation of a minor via computer was defined as under West Virginia State Code, and then asked the alleged victim if they thought Jones had solicited them. The alleged victim said, “Yes.”

“It is evident that Pastor Kevin Jones used a communication device to contact the victim to solicit, entice, seduce or lure (them) into a clandestine relationship while he remained married and was a person of trust,” Cale writes in the complaint.