An often heard quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet poses the question that is easily answered when taken in an historical context.
Photographer Patty Barker is exhibiting her work at The Bank of Romney's main branch in Romney until May 24 as part of Hampshire County Arts Council's Art in Public Places program.
This was on my mind 5 years ago this week, and it still irritates me today. Some marketer probably ought to take that consumer irritation and turn it into another annoying cartoon character.
West Virginia has the 6th largest state highway system in the country — over 3,300 miles of roads the Department of Highways struggles to keep litter free. Hampshire County’s share of this is 694.5 miles of roads to be maintained and kept free of roadside trash.
Senseless damage
The other day I stepped back from completing the recent project of building a woodshed and found myself saying, “I can’t wait until I get this puppy loaded with wood for next year.”
The House of Delegates adjourned early Sunday morning having completed 281 bills, 78 of which have been signed into law.
ROMNEY — Two sites are available in Hampshire County this Saturday for people who wish to rid their medicine cabinets of unwanted prescription drugs.
The 2020 seasonal work crew for the Potomac Valley Conservation District completed maintenance on 50 of the 73 dams located within the 5-county district.
CAPON SPRINGS — A longtime vacationer at Capon Springs Resort will be its new general manager.
The deadline for applying for a $1,000 College Arts Program Scholarship has been extended.
April 12: Thomas Harrison Pyles Jr, 25, of Wardensville was arrested on a warrant out of Mineral County for improper registration, driving while license suspended or revoked-3rd offense, speeding and no insurance.
ROMNEY — Hampshire County Schools hit another official milestone on the long road to seeing 3 new schools: Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has given his official approval for the board to proceed with the issuance of bonds to finance the new schools, the new Capon Bridge Elementary gym and…
ROMNEY — County property tax rates will remain the same as last year, and county property owners will retain their 10% discount on flood insurance, as the result of actions taken at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting.
CAPON BRIDGE — A weekly farmer’s market will open in Capon Bridge — probably on Capon School Street and probably in June, the Capon Bridge Town Council learned at its monthly meeting last week.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s coronavirus vaccination drive is slowing down as fewer people come forward to get shots, the governor said Friday.
Looking to move away from the hustle and bustle of the big city? You can now take country roads, and a paycheck, to get home to West Virginia.
ROMNEY — The magistrate’s ruling Friday morning wasn’t what Love Shack owner Sabrina Droescher wanted to hear, as the judge denied her request to keep 7 of the 103 seized dogs from her Cabin Road property on Cooper Mountain and was subsequently formally indicted on 103 charges of animal cruelty.
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Skies might be gray, but Hampshire County’s redbuds are in the pink right now —particularly along their most prominent stretch, the mile-long run up the west side of Cooper Mountain.
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WEYERS CAVE, Va. — A touch-and-go landing went awry for a 17-year-old pilot from Romney last week.
ROMNEY — For what feels like the 1st time ever, Hampshire County Schools have a little bit of money, thanks to the Covid relief dollars that have been consistently trickling into the school board office since the fall.
Real estate is booming in Hampshire County
Hampshire County has its share of troubling signs that the Covid-19 pandemic is not ending easily.
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Love Shack owner Sabrina Droescher’s request to keep 7 of the 103 seized dogs from her property off Timber Mountain Road was denied by a magistrate ruling Friday morning.
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WEYERS CAVE, Va. – A 17-year-old male pilot from Romney, W.Va. crashed a plane on April 12 at 7:08 p.m. in Augusta County, Virginia.
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The Hampshire County Health Department revealed Thursday that the U.K. Covid variant (B.1.1.7) has been detected in a Hampshire County resident.
Hampshire’s 2021 seniors get their marching orders
Political courage might seem like an oxymoron to most people these days and simply a dream to the rest of us.
Your help mattered
Not Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic.
First, I’d like to start this commentary by thanking Alyson for her letter to the editor dated March 17. I went back and reviewed my notes and found she was absolutely correct in that I had inadvertently misstated that 16- and 17-year-old children would be given a right to vote.
Something bugging me
ROMNEY — The annual Hampshire County Bluegrass Festival is back on the books for this summer after the pandemic railroaded all summer events last year, including the musical Romney mainstay.
A record 846 people in Hampshire County were vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus last Wednesday.
Potomac Edison has kicked off its 2021 tree trimming program with plans to clear vegetation along approximately 1,550 miles of lines in the Eastern Panhandle.
CAPON BRIDGE — Bikers will cruise Corridor H in the 3rd annual Freedom House Ride May 8.
ROMNEY — The town is asking the charitable arm of home supply giant Lowe’s for 2 big grants.
CHARLESTON — New guidance from the federal government will send extra food money to some households already receiving SNAP benefits.
April 5: David Lee Heward, 36, of Purgitsville was arrested for domestic battery.
The Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office handled 497 calls during March, statistics from the 911 call center show.
ROMNEY — A new pump has been ordered for the Romney pool, bringing the summer staple just another step closer to opening for business Saturday, May 29.
Businesses here are nearly as eager for a new round of government subsidies as they were a year ago when the Small Business Administration offered forgivable loans to help firms stay afloat as Covid-19 shut down the economy.
CHARLESTON — A bill that would regulate needle exchange programs in West Virginia passed the Republican-controlled legislature on Saturday. Critics have said more stringent requirements for the programs will constrain the number of providers who give clean syringes to injection drug users no…
West Virginia begins its 1st-ever 5-week spring gobbler season Monday.
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Residents of Hanging Rock say the county’s most magnificent strand of our signature redbuds — stretching up the west side of Cooper Mountain for about a mile — are purple and ready to burst through. By the end of the week, expect the drive to be in the pink.
Farm Credit of the Virginias will return $40 million to its customers this month through the annual patronage program.
FARMERS Livestock
WASHINGTON — Half of a $1 million grant to train the agricultural workforce in West Virginia is headed to a program in Moorefield.
Farm Credit of the Virginias will return $40 million to its customers this month through the annual patronage program.
(When I learned that today is Administrative Professionals Day, I couldn’t resist running this piece, which takes a poke at the corporate culture that many of us in the trenches love to pick on.
CHARLESTON — Corn planting in West Virginia is expected to total 53,000 acres, up 4 percent — or 2,000 acres — from 2020, and up 2 percent from 2019.
FARMERS Livestock
LAKIN — The West Virginia Department of Agriculture will be hosting a farm training day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, May 7, at the Lakin State Farm.
I’ve made the tractor repair rounds and have everybody’s machines at least functional. I’ve also made a little money so that my creditors know that I — and my accounts — are still active after a fashion. The weather forecast for the week shows intermittent showers and perhaps a few random co…
FARMERS Livestock
A column in the Farm section would seem to be the last place to look for stories of the covert actions of governments, terrorists and organized crime. Though I don’t use a computer from which much of this Henny Penny material seems to originate, I still feel that it is my right to partake of…
CHARLESTON — All the numbers surrounding layers production in West Virginia during 2020 were down from 2019.
A universal feature of homes built during the immediate post-war (That is, World War 2) period was the brick planter. These permanent structures fronted the new homes of the returning soldiers’ country or suburban nests where they would raise their families and otherwise get down to the busi…
FARMERS Livestock
CHARLESTON — Honey flowed more freely from the Mountain State’s beekeepers last year than the year before.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia farmers in Hampshire County who want to manage weeds, increase production and conserve soil on their farmland are eligible to participate in a pilot program for pasture weed management.
(I sent this letter to the Winchester Star as an Open Forum submission. It’s a tongue-in-cheek response to an article by political columnist George Will. It was never published. I sent it last October so it’s safe to assume that the Star won’t be running it. It is, after all, way over the wo…
FARMERS Livestock
CHARLESTON — West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt is encouraging farmers to consider donating agricultural products under the West Virginia’s farm-to-food-bank tax credit.
MORGANTOWN — The deadline for Conservation Stewardship Program applications to be considered for funding this year is March 31.
FARMERS Livestock
MORGANTOWN — The deadline for Conservation Stewardship Program applications to be considered for funding this year is March 31.
CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Department of Agriculture held a statewide virtual agri-tourism roundtable Feb. 9 with key government officials and agri-tourism producers.
Agricultural innovators across West Virginia can compete for a business assistance package valued in excess of $5,000 as part of a contest sponsored by the Robert C. Byrd Institute at Marshall University.
With a touch of Southern elegance
2,721 years is a long time. That’s about how long it’s been since an old Greek farmer and poet, named Hesiod, wrote to his brother about the life of a small farmer near Ascra, a town in Central Greece.
Morgans are ‘inseparable’ on their Shanks farm
“We grow plants the way I learned to farm, with respect to the land and the people it feeds,” says Gini LaMaster.
An orchard in Hampshire County is at the center of research to solve the biggest problem facing those hugely popular Honeycrisp apples.
The big rise in corn prices sweeping the globe is rippling into all corners of agriculture like Hampshire’s cattle industry.
FARMERS Livestock
CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Department of Agriculture held a statewide virtual agri-tourism roundtable Feb. 9 with key government officials and agri-tourism producers.
CHARLESTON — The number of farms in West Virginia dropped slightly, but the acreage remained the same during 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is reporting.
CHARLESTON — Corn production dropped while hay soared across West Virginia in 2020.
March 4, 2015 — I couldn’t have picked a worse day to gather my first impressions of Josephine City. It had been sunny and warm when I left Hanging Rock in Hampshire County, leaving with high hopes for a prosperous day on the Clarke County, Va., tractor repair route. The weather became worse…
These stories are usually keyed to the seasons, but I can’t recall if these events took place in the fall or early spring.
FARMERS Livestock
Friend’s Stockyard Inc.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s inventory of sheep and lambs fell by 9 percent in 2020 while the number of goats grew by 6 percent.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released the final rule for its Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, which enables agricultural producers and private landowners to protect farmlands, grasslands and wetlands with conservation easements.
During the colder months, our thoughts are often with the plight of the homeless. But is their situation always a ‘’plight?” In some instances, homelessness can be an adventure. Let me relate what brought this all to mind.
Second in a series
FARMERS Livestock
I’ve gotten myself into what the movie Brits might call a bit of a pickle or even a sticky wicket. I’m in need of flatheads, more specifically, inline flatheads. Before you imagine a marching column of catfish, let me explain what a flathead is.
CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s cattle population dropped by 5 percent in 2020.
Brooke Glover, co-founder of Swilled Dog Hard Cider, didn’t set out to create a new business venture when she and her husband started making cider at home for family and friends.
FARMERS Livestock
If you attended Loudoun County, Va., public schools in the ’50s through the ’70s, chances are that you had the privilege of meeting teacher Anna Beavers.
Grantsville Stockyards
Recently Jim selected an archived installment of Far Muse which pertained to the flood of 1996. Coincidently, I have a deadline coming up for an end-page story for the May/June issue of Vintage Truck Magazine to which the following is destined in a shortened version.
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