Brad Smith, continuing to redefine the boundaries of an MU Prez…..
Even ran into Kinsey’s 1st cousin on the tarmac!
Even ran into Kinsey’s 1st cousin on the tarmac!
SHR - Choose WV Tour
- Thread starter W-S HerdFan
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glad to hear he is selling the state, which imo, has a lot to sell. I think this quote is telling...
“In reality what we find is that those stereotypes aren’t real,” Hanshaw said. “Most of the business community outside the borders of West Virginia, they don’t have a negative image of West Virginia, they don’t have an image at all, they just don’t think about us.”
with many companies wanting to move out of NYC of NJ, where somewhere between 50-60% of what you earn goes to taxes, you would think we would have plenty to sell.
“In reality what we find is that those stereotypes aren’t real,” Hanshaw said. “Most of the business community outside the borders of West Virginia, they don’t have a negative image of West Virginia, they don’t have an image at all, they just don’t think about us.”
with many companies wanting to move out of NYC of NJ, where somewhere between 50-60% of what you earn goes to taxes, you would think we would have plenty to sell.
Sadly, most of what the state is selling is in the Motown area and eastern panhandle. The Huntington area seems lost in the fog. Nucor was a prime pick up but more is needed for Huntington and Cabell Co. jmo
The State Journal and WV Executive publications are heavily slanted to the areas mentioned above; and Charleston of course. Not much on the southern part of the state. Huntingtons leadership sucks! We need a Brad Smith or Brandon Dennison type for Mayor. Not Drug King Williams.
I'm shocked you are still alive with the crippling depression you post.
Not much is offered in morgantown either. It's a sh*thole still. The panhandle has the luxury of the Metro line running to it from DC.
The issue has always been a statewide issue. I know plenty of business owners who have a sour taste of WV because of their treatment for outsiders.
Some multi-million dollar company will not only be soundly rejected, but berated by everyone for even trying.
The inflated ego of the state leadership hasn't helped either...as in...poor to no advertising for WV, because they just expect everyone to already know WV exists. Leadership who built a state on not knowing what the hell they were doing, failed to read the Cliff Notes version of "how to be a real state for dummies", and purposely keep the state uneducated, poor, and dependent.
The biggest nightmare for any politician was the teacher's strike, because when the populace is educated and actually sees the BS spewed from up top, it really shakes those idiots to the core.
It's not a regional thing it is a state-wide thing. It's also why I doubt Brad stops at MU. I could see him going straight to the Governor's mansion and then the Senate.
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The eastern panhandle is growing in spite of being in WV, and over the objections of many of the natives. It grows because it provides swamp housing. Heck, the suburban DC part of Maryland, one of the worst run states in the union, is growing because of that proximity. It is artificial, not the result of actual productive commerce.
The 'hole is the huge taxwaste that is WVU. Massive state spending to educate non-Appalachians at subsidized rates; and the kind of ancillary stuff that most big colleges get. NIOSH for example. Again not actual productive commerce. If WVU had been built in Elkins, like it should have been, Morgantown would be a gas station and a couple strip clubs.
Which brings us to the rest of WV. While the state is 100s of times better than it was just two decades ago, or even one, it still has lots of problems.
- Our lower education system still stinks. Too many teachers simply don't know the material they are supposed to teach others.
- We still have way too many small colleges that have not served a purpose since the interstates were built.
- We have an unfocused community college system that isn't training for future jobs.
- WVU soaks up the majority of the state's higher education spending, and does nothing for the state at all.
- The airport in Charleston STINKS.
- Our road transportation system is still unfinished, decades after it should have been. Why wasn't Corridor H finished in 1982, when the federal government provided the money? Why wasn't 64 6 laned 30 years ago?
- There are way too many people with their hand stuck out, unwilling to work and unwilling to become work marketable, and too many politicians and others who lack the moral courage to force them to.
- Our judicial system continues to skew far to the left, entertaining silly lawsuits that should be laughed out of court. No job creator is going to be exposed to a state that blames drug companies for the acts of drug addicts, for example.
- Our taxes are way too high, on businesses, on individuals, on sales, on everything.
You can take all the tours you want, and, every now and then, pick up a Toyota or a Nucor, but real growth starts with real reform. States that have fair courts, good education systems, good airports and roads, and low taxes don't have to go on tours.
The 'hole is the huge taxwaste that is WVU. Massive state spending to educate non-Appalachians at subsidized rates; and the kind of ancillary stuff that most big colleges get. NIOSH for example. Again not actual productive commerce. If WVU had been built in Elkins, like it should have been, Morgantown would be a gas station and a couple strip clubs.
Which brings us to the rest of WV. While the state is 100s of times better than it was just two decades ago, or even one, it still has lots of problems.
- Our lower education system still stinks. Too many teachers simply don't know the material they are supposed to teach others.
- We still have way too many small colleges that have not served a purpose since the interstates were built.
- We have an unfocused community college system that isn't training for future jobs.
- WVU soaks up the majority of the state's higher education spending, and does nothing for the state at all.
- The airport in Charleston STINKS.
- Our road transportation system is still unfinished, decades after it should have been. Why wasn't Corridor H finished in 1982, when the federal government provided the money? Why wasn't 64 6 laned 30 years ago?
- There are way too many people with their hand stuck out, unwilling to work and unwilling to become work marketable, and too many politicians and others who lack the moral courage to force them to.
- Our judicial system continues to skew far to the left, entertaining silly lawsuits that should be laughed out of court. No job creator is going to be exposed to a state that blames drug companies for the acts of drug addicts, for example.
- Our taxes are way too high, on businesses, on individuals, on sales, on everything.
You can take all the tours you want, and, every now and then, pick up a Toyota or a Nucor, but real growth starts with real reform. States that have fair courts, good education systems, good airports and roads, and low taxes don't have to go on tours.
What's not true about my post? You a Steve WIlliams/drug house fan? JK.
That group IS depressing, yet, reaping millions from the Fed. in grants. Its a money maker - Ask Rocky Meadows
I agree with some of this...
The education system isn't because teachers don't know how to teach, it's their schools are so badly underfunded the resources for teaching are scarce. Many, if not all, reach into their own pockets to provide basic educational tools for their classrooms.
It doesn't help that many educational buildings should be condemned instead of open. Granted, I have seen some new schools and education centers built in Huntington, so it is improving a little.
I agree about the small colleges. Population and resource-wise, WV is simply too small and underfunded to have so many of them.
MU and wvu should be the ones to take over those locations as satellite campuses, with the access to the main campus resources both physically and remotely.
If anything, research the occupational needs of the areas and offer degrees that cater to them.
I agree, wvu can go to hell.
The roads are based, in my opinion, on a total lack of consistency and a lazy humans at the top, only fix the roads near election time to falsely implement the notion of "action." If done consistently, this issue likely wouldn't be so glaringly terrible.
Yes, the airport in Charleston is awful. It is very small and only has the title of "international" because of a technicality involving customs. The runway is literally only two runways. The terminal is small. The city doesn't have enough economy to attract anything that is socially seen as "international."
It's not that people were unwilling to work and weren't marketable. Idiots in generations prior to the ones now, kept pumping the idea that "coal is everything." Which discouraged higher learning for the majority of the state's residents. Generational coal miners were in the families and the women were either nurses or teachers.
The idea of wealth and high paying incomes, were very soon offset by the high risk/cost associated with such a job.
Further complexed by big Pharma and other pill companies to shove the falsehoods that patients were "in so much pain your normal dose of painkillers wasn't enough."
This got people not only addicted because a broken leg had a pain Rx that is 3-4 time the normal dosage, but a middle aged person with no job skills beyond coal mining (which of the kids in HS I observed, requires little to no academic knowledge) is highly unmarketable, depressed because they can't find work, guilty for not moving out of WV because "your abandoning your family and roots", and finally, stuck.
WV screwed itself over tremendously by not embracing change and now it's paying for it.
The older generations prove just how important merely knowing how to read can be. At least the younger generations of WVians can stick the middle finger up at you and write about how much you screwed up.
It'll be ok, since basic articulation eludes you, that or your generation is finally dying out.
It is depressing, however, a product of poor leadership existing beyond the present mayor.
A state with its head shoved so far up it's ass it spent decades IN DENIAL of a problem, then threw its hands up in the air, cried to God, and blamed its citizens...that is the truly depressing part.
Lets be honest. A lot of the blame does lie at the feet of it's citizens and the multiple generations who enshrined the terrible "leadership" that steered the state into the abyss.
Then Elkins would not be as cool as it is, and that would suck. Seriously, I can't imagine Elkins with 20k more humans in it, the traffic (which is bad enough as it is), etc. Thank God this didn't happen. Elkins is a GREAT little city as a gateway to outdoor recreation, and is making strides as a destination for such.
Corridor H? Fvck that road. It wasn't needed past Elkins, it makes as much sense as an interstate through the Smoky Mountains NP. That region is a unique environment and ecosystem. That uniqueness and the beauty of it is what draws people with real money to spend.
I don't want to get too political on this board, but Carmichael and Hanshaw have a lot of chutzpah to celebrate that billion federal dollars for broadband...it's not their party sponsoring it and passing it. That said, broadband is the number one greatest need to draw professionals to WV. WV has a great opportunity to be a remote work hub for people who want to leave the urban hellholes and relocate to somewhere quiet with natural beauty. WV needs to get this done fast to take advantage of that growing sentiment.
The Charleston airport is a joke. I'll never forgive those Charleston assholes for killing the proposed regional airport.
I love WV and always will. I would have loved to have stayed. It was just too hard to make a good living in the part of the state I wanted to live in. Remote professional work can change that.
Brad Smith in politics? I hope not. It would change him and not for the better. Our political system is broken. He will be far more effective leading the education side of things for 20 years. Hell, I'd support putting MU and WVU in a system with a big boss chancellor over both, he would rock that role. He might be the only one with the brains and forceful personality to make WVU work with MU instead of against it...and having Fvck You Money doesn't hurt either, no one can threaten his livelihood.
He would agree with you. He has no interest in politics. Lets hope he remains at Marshall for a long long time.
…..having just met him recently (SBC bball tourney), I would hope he would not see politics as at all attractive. His personality is perfect for where he is, his wheelhouse, if you will….
A certain demographic from Detroit agrees!
Having a negative image is better than no image. A negative image requires some tie to emotion. The person is at least invested emotionally, which allows for the opportunity to improve that image.
Having no image and being incurious is a sign of disinterest and lack of care. The state has no impact or emotion tie which is harder to overcome.
Your jealousy of all that is better than you, which is just about everything, is childish.
States that have "blamed drug companies for the acts of drug addicts": Texas, Florida, Nevada, Kansas, Iowa, Maryland, California, North Carolina, Tennessee, North Dakota, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts . . . yep, a whole bunch of states that no job creators want to go to.
It's been a long time since I have eaten there. It was very good though.
My favorite breakfast spot in that region is the Laurel Mountain Inn in Belington. And the pies there are to die for.
