Richwood Consolidation Push Adds Insult, Greed to Natural Disaster, Injury

Well, this is our reality. And though we are weary, and we’d like to rest in Richwood, we cannot. We must defend our students, our lives and our town. We make no apology for our howls of pain. It is we who are owed an apology of the profoundest order. However, being the people we are here in eastern Nicholas County and true Mountaineers when we win (and we will win this fight we did not pick) we will forgive the behavior that brought us to this sad state.

Now, as a professor since 1983, my priority has always been to help students. That remains in this destructive attempt to consolidate. As I’ve said before, my support of all students and my charge to represent the people of Richwood and the entirety of the county compels me to articulate our social, educational, political and, yes, economic needs. We need and want replaced what FEMA has funded and the superintendent and BOE promised after the flood in a burst of forgotten good will. The BOE has developed a convenient case of amnesia, but we have not. What bolt of enlightenment struck them to use a flood to propose consolidation? None. It’s the combination of faulty thinking that has plagued the state for decades: Hitherto the default position of the state has always been to consolidate, combined with a blatant grab for stature, power and money. What the consolidation ploy has already accomplished is to destroy the unity of a county that had started to pull together, but has now been ripped asunder. We will not be blamed for that. Blame lies with those who divided us: This is their human-made disaster, this stumble backwards into the muck of the thousand-year flood.

Death, however painful, cannot be argued with. Neither can a flood. But a contentious and unnecessary divorce has put people in these parts to openly weeping. It’s sad.

Recently, the first public hearings took place on consolidation. Others are following. Each worse than the one that proceeded it. What a cruel joke this all is. What a nightmare from which we cannot awake — this terribly real proposal to wipe two schools, one with a very high academic rating and the home to the Lumberjack Express Band, from the face of the earth.

Truth is, consolidation was never on the table. Like insidious black mold, it started post-flood and has steadily grown since. This consolidation heaps mental punishment on top of flood PTSD. It is beyond the pale of any injustice I’ve witnessed in my 66 years on this earth. It is not good for students. It is not good for citizens. It is not good for Nicholas County. And, it is not good for the future of West Virginia, which Jim Justice has articulated. It’s good for nothing but dividing people who should have been pulling together for the greater good. No data, no pittance of so-called financial savings justifies this appalling display of inhumanity. For shame for adding human insult and greed to natural disaster and injury.