Shannon Stafford was holding a cherished love letter from her would-be fiancé when she was buried inside a white casket last Friday. Stafford was executed just six days earlier outside a Morgantown, W.Va., Wal-Mart, while her two-year-old daughter Faith was several yards away at the time. Police later allowed the Read more…
Just three miles from where Shannon Stafford rested in her white casket Friday morning, there’s a huge billboard you can’t miss, just as you leave Masontown, W.Va. It urges Prestonians to help prevent child abuse, saying: “It’s your turn to make a difference.” Everyone who drives by is encouraged to Read more…
I don’t know that death gets any easier as you age—be it your own or someone else’s. I can’t say that it’s any less so for me now, than it was 15, 20 or even 30 years ago. It certainly isn’t any less sad. Three notable deaths are being reported Read more…
When Jerry Sandusky waived his right to a preliminary hearing last Tuesday, I could only think of one good reason: plea deal. Which is one of the worst things that can happen to a case like this. It’s also one of the best. Before I tell you what that is, Read more…
If you happen to be in Bellefonte, Pa., today to show support for the Penn State victims–or for Gerald Sandusky’s preliminary hearing–and you see a blonde woman carting a satchel of books, it’s me. I’m not lukewarm, but am either hot or cold: sometimes I take days or weeks to Read more…
NOTE: This originally appeared as “Cassandra’s statement: July 15, 2008” and was first published several years ago. –Daleen I know some visitors to this site will be friends or even family members. Some of you will doubt the validity of my mother’s book; however, I can assure you, as one Read more…
The thing about working for the media is, you sometimes take all the “glitz” that goes with it for granted: tight security, rubbing shoulders with celebrities, or gaining access when other people can’t. But when you change places, you tend to notice these things. Or at least I did, when Read more…
It’s a First Amendment matter, really, when you get right down to it. But it’s also a sign of something that is sorely lacking in our society: The ability to call a spade a spade. I think Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. said it first, when he wrote that Read more…
Journalists were in the hot seat about two months ago, when national headlines made a coal mining tragedy here in West Virginia much worse. Everyone knows that. But what many people may not know is that some of those journalists came to Morgantown six weeks after the Sago Mine disaster, Read more…
NOTE: A portion of this was broadcast on WVPB on January 10, the day family and friends buried Sago miner and Newburg resident Terry Helms. When I went to bed just before 2 a.m. on January 4, I thought that 12 coal miners trapped beneath the earth in a town Read more…