Author Steve Novotney

Ohio County Schools Superintendent Dr. Kim Miller views the proposed 15-year, $42 million bond issue that will appear on the ballot on May 8 as an opportunity, and she’s happy to explain her reasons...

Smothered in homemade spaghetti sauce and garnished with sausages or meatballs or both, the noodles that will be devoured at Catholic Charities’ 18th Street Neighborhood Center this weekend serve as symbols...

They didn’t mind the hours of travel or the protesters who were protesting against them. They had something to do, and that was the March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C., this past Saturday. Two...

People. They are the common denominator, as far as Wheeling resident Jennifer Prietsch is concerned. She’s been the general manager of the Macy’s at the Ohio Valley Mall for nearly a year after she and...

The far left of the three lanes along Interstate 70 would become the “slow lane” on the climb up Two-Mile Hill if Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard gets his wish. Howard, now in his second year of a...

They come home, too, except for, of course, more than 500 of the 280,000 women who have been deployed to war zones and killed in action over the past 17 years. They are medics, nurses, pilots, judge...

Devastation. That’s what Lou Vargo with the Ohio County Emergency Management Agency thought would take place. He admits he envisioned a disaster comparable to the damage that occurred in mid-September...

They had to research a mineral, any one of the 3,800 or so that exist on Earth these days, and they also had to prepare to educate their classmates on it when, finally, an acceptable deal was made to return...

It is one of the silent cities of the dead in Wheeling, but this one was split, and one half has been forgotten. The Peninsula Cemetery, once the third largest in the state of West Virginia with more than...

“If you put money in schools, you’re making smart people. And if you have smart people, then you can make more smart investments.” That’s what Gideon Titus-Glover said to Gov. Jim Justice during a...

The original transmitter back in the early 1990s appeared to be from the 1970s, actually, but that’s what Chris Lee had to settle for when optimizing his TV and radio budget at West Liberty University. On...

There was a time before Roberto’s Bar became Figaretti’s, before a La-Z-Boy showroom was transformed into TJ’s Sportsgarden, prior to when the Swing Club became Generations Pub and before the Owl’s...

He knows he does not speak for all educators and that his words do not carry the weight of 37,000 state public employees, but educator Eric James does know how he feels after nearly 20 years as a teacher and a...

It was heads. For the first time in five years the individual tossing the coin prior to the kickoff of the Super Bowl turned over a “head” just as West Virginian Woody Williams promised he would. The...

The answer to, “What’s Next?” may soon come into focus for downtown Wheeling, but what maybe-could-might happen within the vacant lots along Main Street remains a literal mystery. The Health Plan...

No one knows about it these days because the signage has been removed, chains block the old access points, and Oglebay officials do not promote its existence in their lodging pamphlets or related material...

No one has ever found it, but there were a few moments when Wheeling resident Chris Hamm thought he may have. It was completely possible that his father may have somehow come into ownership of it since he...

Dean Connors once was best known in the Wheeling area as the wig-wearing, head-bangin’ drummer for the local tribute band “Tongue-n’-Cheek,” but these days he has shed the fake locks for a...

You could already hear the music as you walked toward the front door from the always-packed parking lot, and immediately you were met by the bouncer who, you knew, would need to see your ID. Once you were...

(Editor’s Note: This is the second of two reports that will update Weelunk readers on the current status of the proposal to extend U.S. Interstate 68 from the Morgantown area to Moundsville.) There are...

(Editor’s Note: This is the first of two reports that will update Weelunk readers on the current status of the proposal to extend U.S. Interstate 68 from the Morgantown area to Moundsville.) Bob Miller...

Can growth spread? The economic development specialist for the city of Wheeling believes it can, and after more than five years as the manager of Centre Market, Kurt Zende insists what has taken place...

(Editor’s Note: This story is the third and final of a three-part series that will examine the potential that exists in the Wheeling area as we enter a new year.) It seems simple. It’s a bus stop, after...

(Editor’s Note: This story is the second of a three-part series that will examine the potential that exists in the Wheeling area as we enter a new year.) Is it difficult to believe there are more people...

(Editor’s Note: This story is the first of a three-part series that will examine the potential that exists in the Wheeling area as we enter a new year.) Believe it or not, the coming of The Health Plan...

As Weelunk ingrained itself in our community, many more folks forwarded their story ideas to me far more often than during our first two years of operation. And many of those suggestions did come to...

It was similar to shopping in, say, downtown Wheeling, but with two very notable exceptions. There was that roof, of course, and the warmth, too, inside those glass doors of the Ohio Valley Mall. Once it...

Pinched off water lines and undiscovered water and sewer lines have been the primary cause of the delay involved with the storm sewer separation project along Main Street in downtown Wheeling, but has a tunnel...

The Health Plan employees now moving into the insurance company’s new headquarters in downtown Wheeling reside in three different states, and that’s because the compensation is worth it. The same is...

It was an unexpected but welcome development for many when a legislative side road was navigated to get a vote on medicinal cannabis on the floor of the West Virginia House of Delegates. It was late March,...

Too many children do not have access to an internet-capable computer at home in the Upper Ohio Valley region, but one Wheeling couple hopes to change that reality for families without the means to purchase the...

He was a sick kid one year in Aliquippa, PA and ordered to remain home by doctors after he was diagnosed with a kidney disease, so he asked his parents for a guitar and then taught himself how to play...

It was our social network before the public release of the Internet. It mimicked those Park Dances because there were people there from everywhere, and it was the place to go for a first date, every date, and...

C’mon! This 26-year-old is just a kid, right? What could he possibly know about vinyl records or the history of music? When he was born, country music had overtaken the forefront from rock n’ roll, and...

This 20-year-old could do this or do that, but there’s also a chance, too, that Andrea Walton could return to her hometown after earning a pair of degrees at Kent State University. “Could” is better...

And they are home, back with their families in their hometowns and away from the rigors of a Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy. Linsly graduate Colin Kelly is near the middle of his third year, and...

(Editor’s Note: This is the first story in a series that will examine medical cannabis and the programs that are under development in both West Virginia and Ohio.) Dana Kovach was raised in Toronto, Ohio,...

When he first returned to American soil nearly 50 years ago, people looked the other way because they did not want to see someone connected to the unspeakable horrors about which they had heard so...

He didn’t leave here because of a lack of options. In fact, he loved his life in Wheeling after being graduated from Wheeling Park High School in 1978. Employment was easy to find, the camaraderie among...

A goal adopted by the Ohio County Commission a decade ago will finally be realized at The Highlands when a multi-purpose sports complex is constructed and opened to the public in late 2018 or early...

It’s been referred to as a number of different things. The “game changer.” The “difference maker.” The “cracker plant of downtown Wheeling.” And, well, as “new.” The Health Plan...

Receiving approval to clean creeks of flooding debris is very rare, and he will admit it, but the clearing of affected waterways in Ohio County should be completed by the end of the year, according to...

“Tom Beck.” Those were the first two words Kyle Knox blurted after being asked how he has found himself as the production manager of the Capitol Theatre. Beck served as the venue’s production...

Even polka found a place at No. 4 in the entertainment lineup for Saturday’s inaugural Oktoberfest at Centre Market, and that’s because, well, it’s polka. “It’s tradition, so I believed it would...

She was involved in a conversation that concerned living in the downtown Wheeling area and whether or not the potential would be realized someday in the future. Then the 16 Stone Lofts on Main Street opened...

$3.87. That’s the daily budget I spent the past two days so I could eat. Why? To prove a point. Three dollars and 87 cents is the average amount of money available daily to those on SNAP, the...

It was crooked and it was obvious. Wheeling Island Stadium was broken, and no one knew how much it was going to cost to repair the concrete slab in the southwestern corner of the grandstand that had...

It’s contagious, this progress thing in the downtown area of Wheeling, and now Patrick Viola is in the middle of a long overdue façade project at Security Travel on Market Street. Viola has owned and...

Harry. No one knows it, but that’s his real name and now his “driver” name with Uber even though his family and friends know him only as Jule Carenbauer. Jule. Short for Julius, his middle given...

It is 14.5 miles in length from the border of Ohio to the Pennsylvania state line, and it flows east and west, includes 25 bridges and most of it has been in place for more than half a century. It is...