West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, is in a fight to keep his iconic Greenbrier hotel.

A legal notice announcing a public auction for the luxury resort near White Sulphur Springs due to unpaid debts was publicized in the West Virginia Daily News Wednesday — only the latest development in the Justice family’s financial woes.

Justice, who owns dozens of companies and whose net worth was estimated by Forbes Magazine to be $513 million in 2021, has been accused in numerous court claims of being late in paying millions of dollars he owes in debts for family businesses and fines for unsafe working conditions at his coal mines.

He began serving the first of his two terms as governor in 2017, after buying The Greenbrier, which has hosted U.S. presidents and royalty, out of bankruptcy in 2009. The PGA Tour held a tournament at the resort from 2010 until 2019.

His family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.” That property was scheduled to be auctioned off this year in an attempt by Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, to recover more than $300 million in business loans defaulted by the governor’s family, but a court battle between the Justice family and the bank delayed that process.

Wednesday’s notice said the auction involves 60.5 acres — including the hotel itself and the adjacent parking lot — and is scheduled for August 27 at 2 p.m. at the Greenbrier County Courthouse in Lewisburg.

A spokesperson for Justice said the impending auction is not a state government matter and the governor’s office wouldn’t comment. Campaign staff did not return an email from The Associated Press Thursday.

In a statement to West Virginia MetroNews, Justice attorney Bob Wolford accused lender JPMorgan Chase Bank of aligning with the Democrats “to undermine the next Republican Senator from West Virginia.”

The statement said that the Justice family originally secured a $142 million loan in 2014 from JPMorgan Chase and that only $9.4 million in debt remains after payments made as recently as June of this year. On July 1, the governor was notified by JPMorgan Chase that it had sold Justice’s loan to Beltway Capital Management, which declared it to be in default.

A U.S. Senate financial disclosure report filed by Justice on July 13 — after the loan was sold to Beltway — identified The Greenbrier debt to be between $25 million and $50 million.

“Let me be clear that the Greenbrier will not be sold, and the Justice family will take all necessary action to ensure that there will not be any adverse impact on their ownership of the Greenbrier or the Greenbrier’s operations and the ability of the Greenbrier to continue to provide world class service for its guests will be uninterrupted,” Wolford told MetroNews.

West Virginia Democratic Party officials said in a statement that the resort’s foreclosure is not the result of a political stunt, as the Justice family’s attorney contends.

“It is a direct consequence of his own financial incompetence,” they said.

JP Morgan Chase declined to comment.

The Big Ten and ACC may be rival conferences on the basketball court, but there’s a lot that separates the two leagues on the football field. Conference realignment has completely reset the map of college athletics this offseason, with the Big Ten adding USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon while the ACC picked up California and Stanford from what remained of the Pac-12 Conference and also added SMU.

However, Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry — who spent nine seasons as a linebackers coach and defensive coordinator at Penn State under James Franklin — recently made a bold and, frankly, ridiculous claim about the ACC and Big Ten on an appearance on SiruisXM College radio.

“We’ve got great tradition in this league,” Pry said of the ACC. “We’ve got great college towns, we’ve got really good coaching, we’ve got really good skill. I just spent nine years in the Big Ten. The skill in this league is equal or better.”

Put simply, Pry’s claim that the ACC has “equal or better” skill on the football field to the Big Ten simply isn’t true.

Quarterback, running back and wide receiver are considered the “skill positions” on the football field. Pry has been the head coach at Virginia Tech each of the last two seasons, with two NFL Drafts having taken place since he was hired by the Hokies. In those two drafts, the expanded Big Ten has had 33 skill position draft picks (eight QBs, eight RBs, 17 WRs) while the expanded ACC had just 22 such players selected (three QBs, five RBs, 14 WRs). In the 2024 NFL Draft alone, the new Big Ten had five wide receivers taken within the first three rounds, while the ACC had just one.

Michigan has certainly done its part in helping the Big Ten raise its profile in recent seasons. Although the Wolverines are known for their tough defense and dominance at the line of scrimmage, they’ve put their fair share of skill players in the NFL in recent seasons as well, including: QB J.J. McCarthy (2024), RB Blake Corum (2024), WR Roman Wilson (2024), WR Cornelius Johnson (2024) and WR Ronnie Bell (2023).

We’ll give Pry this benefit of the doubt — while he was at Penn State, the league had not yet expanded to include the four West Coast schools. The conference he competed in from 2014-21 looked much different than it does now. But, with the Big Ten adding USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon, the league has further separated itself from the ACC.

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BRISTOL, Va. (WJHL) — The new Virginia Intermediate School is about ready to welcome its first class of students. This latest addition to Bristol Virginia Public Schools (BVPS) will house the school system’s second through fifth graders.

Virginia Intermediate School l is the result of a consolidation process. The school system closed three elementary schools: Highland View Elementary School, Washington-Lee Elementary School and Stonewall Jackson Elementary School.

“Over the past decade, as we’ve looked at the cost of keeping our aging schools renovated and up to standard, the decision was made several years ago to align our resources and work towards having a brand new school that would consolidate all of our students into one elementary campus,” said BVPS superintendent, David Scott.

Virginia Intermediate School is located in Sunset Park, next to Van Pelt Elementary School.

This elementary school is also undergoing changes. It has been renamed Virginia Primary School and houses the school system’s pre-kindergarten through first graders.

The intermediate school will have pieces of the three former elementary schools in its framework, educating some former students and having brick pieces from the schools.

A brick from each school was placed at the corner of the new building.

“As we have come into this new building, one of the things that we wanted to make sure that we took stock of was the history that we’re bringing with us,” said Scott. “Even though we are beginning a new chapter, we’re very proud and very fond of the history that we’ve had in those other schools.”

The intermediate school is the first new school in BVPS in the last 50 years.

Scott is excited for students to experience the new building and have new learning opportunities, such as a rotation in the STEM lab. The intermediate school is handicap accessible, including the playground between grade wings. Plus, the building includes safety features such as a two-entrance process and special locks on the doors.

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Scott hopes the school can be seen as an opportunity to provide the best education to all students in the city.

“We have brought together so many resources,” said Scott. “We have such great new technology in place in our school. And I think there’s something special about walking into a new school and feeling that the community believes that your education is important.”

Teachers continue to put the final touches on their classrooms before students arrive for their first day on August 14. Scott said the school system is communicating with parents about the best traffic route to take to the school on the first day.

The city council decides on the future of the closed elementary schools. Council member Neal Osborne told News Channel 11 that the properties were discussed in a meeting Tuesday, but no decisions have been made yet.

Virginia Intermediate School will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 8 from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

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