This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Friday, June 27, 2014. LEON — Retired Washington Post photo editor Joseph Elbert didn’t have to go looking for inspiration when he decided to start building furniture. It nearly fell on him. When a derecho swept…
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Wednesday, June 11, 2014. The Scott Depot home of Gene and Janis Bennett doesn’t really look like a farm, not at first glance. Approaching from the street, the suburban property just looks like it is…
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Wednesday, February 19, 2014. In the last few weeks, chef Paco Aceves has auditioned for a new job, landed that job, packed up his wife and children and all their earthly possessions, moved everything across the…
This story originally appeared in the November/December 2015 issue of West Virginia Focus magazine. Imagine your great-great-great-grandpa rambling down some cobblestone street, out on the town with his buddies. They bust through swinging doors into a dark saloon, step past the tables and brass spittoons, and belly up to the…
This story originally appeared in the November/December 2015 issue of WV Focus. The butcher block in Ralph Richmond’s shop is warped from years of use. The block was already old when Ralph inherited it from the original owner 38 years ago, and years of blood and…
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. 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…