News Articles

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."

A 17-year-old Berkeley Springs girl who left home on August 13 with her older boyfriend still hasn't returned home. Her family is concerned for her safety.

Chelsea Dawn Rye reportedly packed up her belongings and left her Morgan County home in the company of Danny Grady, 37, of Frederick County, Va.

Both print and on-air media have given a lot of attention lately to the woes of subprime mortgage lenders and borrowers. The crisis is blamed for the bottom dropping out of the stock market as the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen sharply in the last two weeks, and credit markets have tightened worldwide.

Holders of mutual funds have seen their share value decrease appreciably and the housing sales slump continues across the country. Predictions estimate it will take another year before the housing market starts to recover.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Governor Manchin's REAP program are hosting a local tire collection event to rid the county of old tires.

The event will be held August 24-25 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Residents may take old tires for disposal to the Division of Highways facility in Berkeley Springs.

BB&T bank is being honored by the Berkeley Springs-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce. The bank will join the 49 members of the Apple Butter Festival Hall of Fame. BB&T will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at a community luncheon on Wednesday, September 12, Noon at the Country Inn.

The afternoon will feature fun entertainment. The luncheon's corporate sponsor is the U.S. Silica Company. Tickets for the luncheon are available at the Chamber of Commerce.

Since her bone marrow transplant in the fall of 2005, 11-year-old Adrianna Shingleton has been on the mend from her battle with leukemia. She remains cancer-free, but has had complications from the treatment of her disease.

Police seized numerous drugs and $1,100 in cash from a local home during a drug raid on Friday evening, August 17.

According to police, members of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department SWAT team executed a search warrant at Raymond L. Unger's home at 9087 Martinsburg Road shortly before 11 p.m. on Friday. Once inside the home, police found three grams of heroin, a small rock of crack cocaine, and 56 prescription pills that included methadone and Vicodin.

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.

U.S. Silica was sold last Thursday, August 9, to Harvest Partners of New York City for an undisclosed amount.

Harvest Partners is an independent private equity group that currently manages about $1.7 billion in investments.

A 24-year-old Martinsburg man was bound over to Morgan County Circuit Court on a felony charge of attempted kidnapping following a hearing in Magistrate Court last week.

John L. Potter of West John Street, Martinsburg, was charged with attempted kidnapping in connection with an alleged kidnapping and beating incident near the Morgan/Berkeley county line.