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…
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,…
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…
This story originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine. The fish weren’t biting when Rick Burgess and his twin brothers Denny and Danny arrived at Spruce Knob Lake for a weekend camping trip in 1976. Denny suggested they try their…
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…
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…
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 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 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 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…