One of the reasons why I love journalism is that I’m a most curious person about everything that made the Upper Ohio Valley what it was, what makes it what it is today, and what it could become in the future.
This past week is a perfect example as LEDE News once again offered its readers a number of articles no other media source had reported.
- Local residents learned from EMA Director Lou Vargo this week the process in Ohio County as to how the COVID-19 vaccine would be distributed to local residents. Frontline healthcare employees (thank you!) will be first in line, and then workers and residents of nursing homes will be next. First responders would follow, and then the vaccine will be made available to the general public sometime in 2021. There is the debate, however, concerning its safety because of the amount of time it took for its development and testing, and the reaction on social media was approximately 50-50.
- With the cancelation of the Super 6 High School Football Championship, I asked Bernie Dolan if we should have had sports at all. The executive director of the W.Va. Secondary Schools Activities Commission, an Ohio County native and a formers teacher, coach and administrator, responded that it’s more about the students than it was about sports.
- For the first time since August, the Ohio County Emergency Management Agency sent out a mass text concerning a number of overdoses in the Wheeling area, and that’s because the coronavirus pandemic has done little to hinder the opioid epidemic in the Upper Ohio Valley. Brooke County’s Chris Byers, a V.P. with Pinnacle Treatment Centers, explained to me his perspectives on addiction, how heroin became so prevalent, and why treatment and 12-step programs are the keys to recovery.
- No one was prepared for a pandemic, and no one believed it would last this long, and that includes local and state public education officials. That is why I felt it important to ask Ohio County Schools Superintendent Dr. Kim Miller how the students in the district would be able to catch up on missed instruction, and she explained that the conversation had already begun among administrators of the school system. How to hold the students and their families accountable, however, is yet another conundrum.
- We all have our favorite “eats” in the Wheeling area, and that’s why I chose to visit with Joe Coleman at Coleman’s Fish Market this week. It had been a few weeks since my last fried fish fix, and I wanted to ask Joe what the secrets are involved in making those delicious, simplistic sandwiches. Joe also revealed that a big change with one of the ingredients could be coming in the future.
- Michael Carroll loved to discuss his ideas because he was always trying to discover new ways to help others. Michael knew he was very sick, but he never felt sorry for himself because he was more concerned about his family and his friends at Wheeling Park High School. That was Michael, and even though he passed away a little more than six years ago, his family continues to honor him with the “Carroll Lights” on Wheeling Island.
We have many more stories to tell about the people and places here in our Upper Ohio Valley, and that is what LEDE News will continue to provide its readers each and every week.
