Local Columns

Marshall Memo: Smarts for Life; Natatorium; Cleanup; and a New Roof

A team from John Marshall High School won the 2024 West Virginia LifeSmarts Championship, which means they will travel to California next month to compete for the 2024 Life Smarts Varsity Team National Title. The JMHS LifeSmarts team includes: Alina Holliday, Maria Huck, Jasper Murrin, and Ethan Pekula. They are coached by Business Teacher Megan Pintus. With the state competition win, the team qualified for the 30th LifeSmarts Championship to be held April 18-21 in San Diego. Fifty teams will be taking part. John Marshall teams have been competing at the national championship for six ...

It’s Time for Americans To Prepare for Electricity Rationing

In the hours before President Biden delivered his State of the Union address, the Washington Post ran a front-page story titled “Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power.” What the Post and other national outlets have discovered is that America’s electricity demand is soaring. And our electricity grid is in no shape to handle it. None of this was in the president’s address before Congress because it doesn’t fit the administration’s narrative of a smooth and painless energy transition. But the inescapable reality is that the reliability of our power supply ...

The Curious Case of Caiden Cowger

When writing about lobbyists in my column last summer, I wrote about Caiden Cowger, a Republican political operative and the president of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia. While Cowger’s predecessor at the Family Policy Council, Allen Whitt, was a registered lobbyist with the West Virginia Ethics Commission, Cowger has never registered as a lobbyist. As such, he also provides no expenditure reports to the Ethics Commission. Yet, Cowger actively lobbies on specific issues directly to lawmakers during legislative sessions and has acted almost as an unpaid staffer for ...

Path to Success Is Clear for YSU

I’ve been the president of Youngstown State for nearly two months now, and despite some of the negative publicity at the beginning, we’ve gotten off to a running start on success. In fact, there are some really great things happening here at the University. In the job I left — in the world of American politics these days — there was little teamwork, and some would say even less progress. But here on the campus of YSU, just like our animal kingdom penguin friends, we’re pulling together like family and getting things done. Countless YSU supporters have expressed their ...

Marshall Memo: Traveling Trunk; Students Honored; and Art Show

Launched in January 2023, Cockayne’s traveling trunk program has continued to grow this year. Last year the program featured two trunks — one covering life during the Victorian Era, and one focused on WWII local history. This year Cockayne has completed various visits in surrounding schools. Several schools that got a visit came to the farmhouse on field trips. There are several upcoming events at the Marshall County Historical Society and Cockayne Farmstead. This Monday, March 18, a banquet to be held at the Strand Theatre will introduce new board members and the 2024 History ...

Looking Back at the Legislative Session

As I write this Sunday morning following the end of this year’s 60-day session of the West Virginia Legislature, I’m trying to wrap my head around everything. When one looks back at this particular session, I have no idea what the takeaways will be. I stand by my contention a few weeks ago that this was largely a lackluster session. I decided to do some compare and contrast. As of the stroke of midnight Saturday, 280 bills had completed the legislative process, meaning they were passed by both the House of Delegates and the state Senate (38 of those bills have already been signed ...