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Guest column/Working to build a better future for West Virginia

Hello, West Virginia. If we haven’t met, I would like to introduce myself. I am Michael T. Benson — you can call me Mike — president of West Virginia University. I officially started July 15 and I am amazed at how three decades of work in higher education across the United States have brought me, step by step, to the place I belong — the beautiful state of West Virginia in a position to lead its flagship, land-grant institution into a new era. My wife, Debi, is especially looking forward to experiencing the four seasons the Mountain State offers after our time under ...

Guest column/Trying to cope with obsessive-compulsive disorder

I have had obsessive-compulsive disorder all my life. Even as a child, my devoted mother, Dorothy Irene Welker, would say to me, “Billy, you dwell on things too much.” I still do, but it wasn’t until my late 20s that I was finally diagnosed with OCD by Dr. Dorothy Jones, a clinical psychologist. In the United States, approximately 2.5 million people have been diagnosed with OCD. And those are only the reported cases. Millions of other Americans just try to cope with it. They are embarrassed to tell their friends about their condition. But keep in mind, OCD is an emotional ...

I really thought that it would be easier …

So, I was putting together the Valley Life section of the paper this week, adding in sermon topics when they became available. On Wednesday, I received the sermon title for the Cadiz Presbyterian Church. It is entitled, “I Thought it Would Be Easier.” Well, I instantly fell in love with what they would be speaking about. For some reason, it just resonated with me. Now, I have absolutely no idea what the church will be discussing in its message to the congregation. That is, unless I go and listen to their preacher and hear his meaning behind why he chose this particular ...

History in the Hills: Measuring our past

When someone comes to Historic Fort Steuben, they will have a lot to see. Their first stop will be the Visitor Center where one could visit our display area to see many historical collections, in addition to a model of the fort. Visitors also can stop at our museum shop as well, to browse local books, gifts and souvenirs. When entering the fort, one can visit nine buildings that are set up to show what life was like for the soldiers and surveyors who occupied it in the 1780s. Some of the buildings historically were used for the same use, such as the fact that there were two buildings ...

Plenty of warm weather

The first day of August is coming on Friday, and that means many people have already started to look ahead to the end of summer. There are plenty of other signs all around us that even though we are just a little more than a month into astrological summer (which began June 20), there’s change coming our way. For example, football practice has started. The Steelers have been at training camp in Latrobe since Thursday, and last weekend saw the return of area high school football when the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference held its 79th annual Rudy Mumley Charity All-Star Football ...

Guest column/Artificial intelligence is upending the job market

Today’s college graduates face a startling reality. Many of the jobs they were hoping for are rapidly disappearing because of artificial intelligence. As Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame recently observed, “We’ve been telling kids for 15 years to learn to code. Well, AI is coming for the coders.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg agrees. He predicts that most Meta code will be written by AI in the next 12-18 months. The great disruption is here. Many entry-level office jobs — from coders and analysts to researchers and writers — are being eaten by AI. The unemployment ...