Kate Shunney

County residents had strong feelings about new courthouse designs presented at a public meeting last Thursday, August 16.

While some citizens said they liked the architect's renderings of both a two and three-story courthouse, others said they hated the building, which looked, they said, like "a Chinese pagoda."

Starting this fall, Berkeley Springs High School students will have another person to call on for help with issues both inside the classroom and out on the street.

Sheriff's Department deputy Kevin Barney was hired last month to become the high school's first Prevention Resource Officer. Berkeley Springs High School will join the ranks of more than 40 West Virginia schools with a prevention officer walking their halls.

I was five months pregnant when the Morgan County Courthouse burned. I will tell my son the story of that morning when he is older, when the only county courthouse he knows is the one we'll call "the new courthouse."

Darkness

"Considering what it could have been, it's very user-friendly," said Bette Kidwell of the trailer that has housed her County Commission office for the last year.

Like her fellow county employees, Kidwell has made the best of the "temporary" offices brought in just a week after the Morgan County Courthouse burned.

Last week, a dozen young wrestlers got to do something that few athletes ever will – practice their sport with an Olympic silver medalist. Kids in the Shepherd University wrestling camp at Rankin's Fitness Center got a visit from Lloyd "Butch" Keaser on Thursday, July 19. Keaser was the silver Medalist in wrestling at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, in addition to being a world champion wrestler, and winner of the Pan-American Games.

Dr. Lynn Hiles has been around preachers and churches for a large portion of his life. The Morgan County native is the son of Jack and Shirley Hiles, who have led the local Word of Deliverance church on Winchester Grade Road since 1977. His sister is the Associate Pastor of that church. His wife's father was an evangelist, as is Hiles' brother. His two sons are already following in that same path.

But even though the life of an evangelist is one he knows well, Hiles himself was surprised when his ministry led him to a dinner with President Bush last month.

County high schools may implement new graduation requirements ahead of the rest of the state if school officials get their way. According to Director of Secondary and Career Education Laura Hovermale, the county has applied for a state waiver that would allow Berkeley Springs and Paw Paw High Schools to jump ahead with state graduation rules slated to start in the 2008-2009 school year.

Hovermale told school board members about the waiver at their July 2 meeting. The new graduation requirements could easily be implemented for incoming ninth graders this year, Hovermale said. That would give school officials extra time to meet state requirements the following year.

Parents of Morgan County four year olds will have a new place to enroll their children for free pre-Kindergarten classes during the 2007-2008 school year.

School officials unanimously approved plans for the early childhood classes in a July 2 agreement with Doodlebugs Learning Station on Oakland Road in southern Morgan County.

Discussions at Monday night's school board meeting over pre-Kindergarten programs turned to concerns about security and vandalism at the former Great Cacapon Elementary school.

The West Virginia Depart-ment of Education announced last month that 13 of the state's schools had been designated as Schools of Excellence for 21st Century Learning.

Widmyer Elementary was among the elite group of schools, and the only Eastern Panhandle school to make the list.