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Easter egg events in Barbour

Hello from Barbour County! Spring is hopping right on in and making itself at home. The news this week is full of egg hunts and spring parties. Today, April 5, from 8 -11 a.m. there will be a buckwheat and pancake breakfast at Feed My Sheep Christian School in Philippi. Eat in or take out is available. After getting your fill of breakfast, head on up to Battlers Knob for their Spring Craft Show from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. More than 50 vendors will be present. Stop by and see what kind of nice things that they have. My aunt will be there with her handmade blankets. Stop by and tell her ...

Free speech and educators

Recent media coverage involving an ongoing investigation at Elkins High School has raised questions about the boundaries between personal expression and professional conduct within our schools. While I will not comment on any specific personnel matter, I want to address a broader, important issue: how the First Amendment applies in public education and what we expect of our teachers and staff. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, religion, and expression. These rights are foundational to our democracy and apply within our public schools. In Tinker ...

Build economic freedom

As a business owner, common sense conservative, and lifelong West Virginia Republican, I have witnessed a remarkable transformation as Republicans achieved supermajority control of our state legislature over the past decade. When my father, former Congressman David B. McKinley, served in a Democrat-dominated legislature in the 1980s and early 1990s, Republicans barely had a voice — with as few as one or two senators out of 34 and as few as eight or nine delegates out of 100. Today, Republicans hold supermajority control over both houses of the Legislature and all statewide ...

Support teachers, don’t investigate them

We need to put funding into supporting public school teachers — not investigating them. The idea that the Randolph County BOE is funding an investigation of teachers is a sad sign that our democracy is not working. If teachers and students cannot have conversations about issues that directly impact them, then our public schools are not helping students learn to understand how a democracy should work. The right to free speech is a basic tenet of American democracy. Free speech should only be limited when it harms people. School funding is important to students. In all my years of ...

Trump’s advisors

Embarrassment and dismay squarely hit the Trump administration after it was revealed that a high-level foreign policy discussion had taken place on an unsecured server. Michael Waltz, the National Security Council Director, further aggravated the situation by inviting Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, to the meeting. Despite the denials, Goldberg correctly gave a good accounting of the conference and the subsequent discussion regarding the bombing of Yemen. Waltz naturally tried to discredit Goldberg, only to have the editor produce the actual words and then a copy of the ...

Focus on continuous improvement

Things have changed so much! Hard to believe it is the same place.  When we see a community, or a place of work, or even a person often, changes in them appear to take place gradually. Things seem to move slowly or not at all. When we’re away for a while and then see the person or place again, changes may feel dramatic. After my book Building a Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America was published, I was invited to Elkins, West Virginia, to present at the 2020 Elkins-Randolph County Chamber of Commerce event. My visit included a workshop based on the ...