The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Editorials

September 4, 2010

Thumbs, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010

Thumbs up ... to West Virginia students performing better than their peers nationwide in freshman-level English on the 2010 ACT college entrance exam. The state rate was 71 percent compared to a 66 percent national rate.



Thumbs up ... to Raleigh County schools making use of Edline, a software component that helps parents and teachers communicate. Parents will have access to check their children’s grades and verify attendance online.



Thumbs up ... to Mountaineer Gas and the proposed 12.57 percent decrease the company is applying for statewide due to decreasing gas costs.



Thumbs up ... to The Greenbrier’s underground casino having gambling revenues of more than $891,400 since opening less than two months ago. Since the Casino Club opened July 2, the resort has seen more than $694,000 in revenues from table games and nearly $197,000 from its 320 slot machines.



Thumbs up ... to West Virginia University researchers who are continuing to test a shelter for miners trapped underground by fires, explosions or cave-ins. A steel enclosure, 24 feet long, 8 feet wide and 5 feet high. is equipped to accommodate up to 10 miners for four days with water, food, communications gear, a toilet and curtains that absorb the carbon dioxide that the miners would exhale. 



Thumbs down ... to mountaintop mining activists for not taking an ad for a special West Virginia University football uniform in the spirit in which it was designed. We agree Nike erred in the way it portrayed mining in the background of the ad. No, it did not represent the type of mine in which the Upper Big Branch 29 perished. But to see the ulterior motive of an endorsement of mountaintop removal stretches the imagination of many.



Thumbs up ... to those few voters who went to the polls last Saturday in the special primaries to nominate candidates to fill the Senate seat of the late Robert C. Byrd. Total voter turnout was only about 12 percent.



Thumbs up ... to airports in Raleigh and Wyoming counties that will benefit from $1,897,745 in federal funding. Raleigh County Memorial Airport will receive $178,281 to fund snow removal. Kee Field near Pineville will use its $37,732 grant to evaluate obstructions currently penetrating the runway threshold siting surface.

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Editorials
  • Thumbs — Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012

    February 11, 2012

  • Drug screening

    When it comes to coal mine safety issues, representatives of the United Mine Workers often are leading the way.

    February 10, 2012

  • This is why

    Operation of Fayette schools
    won’t return to local control  
    until there is some consensus

    February 9, 2012

  • MSU

    Mountain State University is at a critical crossroads and southern West Virginians need to step up and show their support for the school and its hundreds of students and employees.

    February 8, 2012

  • MSU

    Community needs to show its support for our university

    February 8, 2012

  • If you don’t think so, you’d better think again

    EPA regulations turning the screw on coal industry

    February 7, 2012

  • Airport projects crucial

    Tom Cochran and others at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport can breathe a little easier, or at least take a deep breath and exhale, after word came from Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s office last week that a deal has been struck between the two chambers in Congress to authorize long-term funding, into 2015, for the Federal Aviation Administration.

    February 5, 2012

  • Thumbs — Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012

    February 4, 2012

  • It’s not a choice

    Whether a bill to eliminate tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike when the current bonds expire some eight years from now is passed by the Legislature and signed into law or not, one thing is absolutely certain — the state Transportation Department has the responsibility to maintain that 88-mile stretch of Interstate highway.

    February 3, 2012

  • On the shelf

    A Senate bill (SB168) offered by 13 of the upper chamber’s members that would have given counties the option to boost the pay of county commissioners, sheriffs, county and circuit clerks, assessors and prosecuting attorneys by at least $10,000 each has apparently been shelved and will do nothing but draw dust this legislative session.

    February 2, 2012