CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Members of the West Virginia Republican Party joined forces Monday evening in Charleston for a Trump 47 Volunteer Engagement Rally ahead of the November General Election.
Tresa Howell
The rally saw West Virginia GOP Chairman Matt Herridge and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey speak on how to prepare for election season and how to better support and promote former President Donald Trump.
Tresa Howell, who is running for House of Delegates, District 52, says the rally is bringing together a unified body ready to vote.
“What you see is the GOP candidates, representatives, and everyone behind the scenes that are working to get everyone across the finish line,” Howell said Monday evening. “We are unified, and we are ready for November the 5th.”
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Morrisey says the event is showing the party’s energy.
Patrick Morrisey
“This is a great event,” Morrisey said. “There’s so much energy here in West Virginia.”
The rally was also put on to show the confidence among party members that their state would be red come November. Joshua Higginbotham says he and others are confident West Virginia will be a Republican state across the board.
“I think that most of the people here are assuming that there is going to be a Republican blowout in a few weeks,” Higginbotham said. “I think Republicans are going to win up and down the ballot and we can tell that the energy is really strong in this room tonight.”
While many in the room at Recovery Sports Grill in Charleston were confident in how election season would look, Morrisey says it’s going to take a full effort for his party up until the end.
“People are still working hard,” Morrisey said. “We have to knock on doors, we have to make calls, we have to not take anything for granted.”
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Another point made clear during the rally was the interaction with those in other states. Herridge and others spoke on members of the party needing to reach out to friends and family ahead of the election to convince them to get out and vote and vote for Trump.
Higginbotham says there are quite a few states up in the air that may decide the 2024 General Election.
“West Virginia is almost guaranteed to be a Republican state up and down the ballot, but there’s a lot of other states that are at play, probably as many as 10 states,” Higginbotham said. “You’ve got to look at Wisconsin, look at Florida, look at Pennsylvania, Michigan, and if you have friends or family there, encourage them to vote.”
Morrisey, who will be running for governor in November against Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, says he, too, is confident West Virginia will vote Republican, but he wants to hit other benchmarks besides just winning the election.
“Every vote does matter. First of all, I want West Virginia to be the biggest pro-Trump state in the nation, and we want to get a lot of people out to vote,” Morrisey said. “I know that it makes a difference because of the popular vote issue, and also, you want to go in with a mandate to govern.”
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While the rally was mostly focused on the presidential election to come, Higginbotham says getting out to vote for local positions should be one of the main reasons to exercise the right.
“Even if there’s a blowout statewide and you get Republicans at the top of the ticket that win everything here, honestly, your day-to-day life, it matters more who your county commissioner, your sheriff and your city council member is,” Higginbotham said.
Howell’s final message from the rally was for citizens to not wait any longer to register to vote.
“We have 21 days prior to the election to get registered to vote, so please don’t wait until the last minute,” Howell said.
Researchers at public universities in Kentucky and West Virginia are planning to collaborate alongside local residents on a four-year project to better understand, predict and prepare for flash flooding in Appalachia and climate change’s impacts on it.
Surface coal mining worsened deadly Eastern Kentucky floods in July 2022, study shows
A nearly $1.1 million award from the U.S. National Science Foundation will bring together civil engineers and scientists from environmental and social fields to study a range of topics, including soil moisture’s impact on flash flooding. Researchers also will gauge monitors installed in waterways to help tailor flooding solutions “to community goals, serving as a model for resilience planning in vulnerable communities across the U.S.,” according to the project’s description.
Researchers will analyze decades of precipitation and streamflow data from the University of Kentucky’s Robinson Forest in Breathitt County and install soil moisture sensors throughout the research forest to better understand flooding in headwater streams.
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Christopher Barton, a University of Kentucky professor of forest hydrology and watershed management and principal investigator for the project, in a statement said researchers want to do everything they can “to build up the infrastructure to understand, predict and prepare for flash floods in this region.”
“To best help, we also must understand how climate change and landscape alterations affect flash floods,” Barton said.
The “novel collaboration” is also funding researchers from the University of Louisville, Eastern Kentucky University, West Virginia University and Marshall University. A main goal of the collaboration is developing improved early warning systems to alert communities when flash floods are worsening.
Eastern Kentucky University will also be using the funding to aid high school and middle school teachers develop science education programming and plant trees as a part of reforestation efforts to mitigate flash floods.
Lindsey Cormack from the Stevens Institute of Technology will talk about her recent book “How to Raise a Citizen” at 5 p.m. tomorrow (Oct. 15) in the Downtown Library, Milano Reading Room.
Young people have shown an active concern about many issues, but are often disengaged from the political process. Cormack will focus on ways to engage young people in civic education.
The event is supported by the West Virginia Humanities Council, WVU Humanities Center, WVU Libraries and Department of Political Science.
Building on a 134-year mission of academic excellence, service to others and equipping leaders, West Virginia Wesleyan College continues to gain recognition in prestigious college rankings. The college was ranked among the top 10 for Best Value in the South in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Colleges and is listed as one of the Best Regional Colleges by The Princeton Review.
In the U.S. News & World Report rankings, the college was ninth for Best Value among Regional Colleges in the South and 30th overall in the same area. West Virginia Wesleyan College was the only West Virginia higher education institution to earn a Best Value Ranking.
West Virginia Wesleyan is also listed as one of the Top Performers on Social Mobility, which assesses how well schools graduate students who received federal Pell Grants.
Vice President for Enrollment and Marketing John Waltz said, “We’ve experienced two consecutive years of overall growth, over 10% in that time. With West Virginia freshman enrollment up 20% and a 40% growth in graduate enrollment, it is clear that students and families value a Wesleyan education and recognize it as the premiere education in our region. West Virginia Wesleyan continues to provide critical solutions to market needs.”
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In determining Best Value Schools, U.S. News & World Report considered academic quality and cost after accounting for total expenses and financial aid.
More than 95 percent of WVWC students receive financial aid in the form of scholarships. WVWC awards academic scholarships up to $18,000 per year, which can be combined with co-curricular scholarships (athletics, creative arts, community service), the West Virginia PROMISE Scholarship, and all outside scholarships obtained by incoming students.
The U.S. News & World Report rankings follow the college’s listing in the ‘Best in the Mid-Atlantic’ section of The Princeton Review’s “2025 Best Colleges: Region by Region” publication.
College Raptor, a leading college planning platform, also selected West Virginia Wesleyan College as one of its Hidden Gem Colleges in the Southeast, based on graduation rates, retention, student-to-faculty ratio, endowment per student and other metrics via the National Center for Education Statistics.
West Virginia Wesleyan College will host Fall Open Houses on October 26 and November 16, giving prospective students the opportunity to discover how they can find their place at their Home Among the Hills. For more information, visit www.wvwc.edu.
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