Tag: feature writing
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Carnival of Soles
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Wednesday, May 7, 2012. Jina Jordan has held several jobs in her life. She owned a cleaning business and then worked as a pizza dough maker at Gino’s Pizza in Sissonville. She drives cars for the St. Albans Auction and repairs purses and leather jackets at […]
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Dogs, by Design
This story originally appeared in the February 2017 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine. Look around Old Hemlock, the historic Preston County home of writer and illustrator George Bird Evans and his wife Kay, and it doesn’t take long to get a sense of the lives that once filled these walls. There’s a folksy quilt […]
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Silver Bridge tragedy still haunts river city residents
This story originally appeared in the December 11, 2012 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. Ben Cedar crossed the Silver Bridge three times on the day it fell. He was working as a Kirby sweeper salesman back then, and crossing the bridge was the fastest way to get across the Ohio River from his home […]
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In Search of the Stone Man
This story originally appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of WV Living magazine. Russ Jones navigates the woods with an ease that only comes through vast experience. His running shoes do not lose their footing on this steep, unmarked trail in Kanawha State Forest. As a certified Master Naturalist, he readily spots animal tracks and identifies birdsong, […]
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How Gillian Welch Created an Americana Touchstone in ‘Revival’
This is an excerpt of a story that first appeared online at Rolling Stone Country on November 10, 2016. Read the rest of the story here. Early afternoons were pretty quiet at the Lyric Springs Country Inn. The previous night’s guests usually left in the morning, headed for home or into Nashville about 20 miles away. […]
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High Hopes for a New Cash Crop
This story originally appeared in the August/September ’16 issue of Morgantown Magazine. Susanna Wheeler prefers not to divulge the location of her summer garden. She’ll admit it is planted on WVU property, but that is as much information as she’s comfortable giving out. “We don’t want people to try to come up here and see […]
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At River’s Bottom
This story originally appeared in the August 2016 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine. At first, no one knew exactly what was happening, or why. But one fact was clear—lots of things were dying in Dunkard Creek. Division of Natural Resources fisheries biologists Frank Jernejcic and Dave Wellman were at the Monongalia County stream almost every […]
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Making the Stage
This story originally appeared in the summer 2016 issue of WV Living magazine. Arrive late to a show at the Jerry Run Summer Theater and you can hear the music as soon as you open the car door. Low frequencies seep from the uninsulated walls, drawing you along the worn grass path toward the green front doors. Inside, after you’ve paid the $5 […]
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Appalachian Distillery makes moonshine, legally
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Wednesday, August 27, 2014. RIPLEY — Dwayne Freeman makes his moonshine almost the same way as the old-timers. He uses big sacks of corn and a kettle connected to shiny copper lines. There are a few minor differences, however. First, Freeman doesn’t make his whiskey in the moonlight. In […]
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Whatever happened to Randolph Scott?
This story was originally published in the Charleston Daily Mail on Friday, May 30, 2014. Donald Moore knows everything there is to know about film projectors. He’s sold bunches of them over his half-century running Moore Theater Supply Company on Lee Street. When a repair call came in, he could usually diagnose the problem over […]