This story originally appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of WV Living magazine. The Native American hunter, all bulging muscle and sinew, lies close to his horse’s neck as the beast reaches full gallop. He clutches a flint-tipped spear in his right hand. With his left…
This story originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of WV Living magazine. At first, it seems a little ironic to watch the artisans at Blenko Glass make giant water droplets out of glass. Working with glass means working with fire. Each step in the…
This story originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of WV Living magazine. On June 15, 2015, elected officials, members of the public, and journalists crammed into the dark wood-paneled council chambers at Charleston City Hall to watch Kanawha Circuit Judge Todd Kaufman administer the…
This story was originally published in the September/October 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, the newsroom staffs of the Charleston Daily Mail and Charleston Gazette were called to the front lobby of their shared headquarters at 1001…
This story originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine. For more than a millennium, people in Japan and China have used aquatic birds called cormorants to help them catch fish. Fishermen tie hemp snares around a trained bird’s throat so…
This story originally appeared in the September/October 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. The halls at Lily’s Place, an old Huntington podiatrist’s office turned infant drug withdrawal center, are almost noiseless. For drug-affected newborns, almost any kind of stimulus is unbearable. “Sometimes just talking…
This article was originally published in the Jan./Feb. 2016 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. One day Bill Thompson, 76, decided to just sit and wait by the front door of his Boone County home improvement store. Thompson bought Danville Lumber from his uncle after…
This story originally appeared in the January/February 2016 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. For a time, it seemed black lung was headed the way of smallpox and polio. When Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, about 35 percent…
This story originally appeared in the November/December 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. Patrecia Gray’s home is tucked away up a narrow hollow in Mason County. She bought the property in the 1970s with her husband, partly because it reminded her of the Laura…
This story was originally published in the Charleston Daily Mail on February 14, 2014. From the time we started dating, my wife and I just knew we were a perfect match. Peas in a pod. Socks in a drawer. Reese Cups in a wrapper. We shared…