By Jay Wyatt

The Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education started its teacher institute program three years ago. Our first two workshops were held at the Byrd Center in Shepherdstown in 2016 and 2017 and drew grades k-12 public and private school educators from the Eastern Panhandle and Potomac Highlands regions of West Virginia.  The teachers learned about and received training with teaching resources developed by the Center for Legislative Archives (a division of the National Archives and Records Administration) and by the Byrd Center. This summer, with the support of a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council, we took the show on the road and conducted one-day institutes at the Cultural Center in Charleston, the State Fairgrounds in Lewisburg, and WVU’s Downtown Library in Morgantown, where we reached a broader group of educators, introducing them to new methods of teaching students about representative government and the United States Congress in the process.

By Jody Brumage

​The small communities of Kearneysville and Leetown in Jefferson County, West Virginia have been a center of scientific research for over sixty years. One of the laboratories centered in the area is the Appalachian Fruit Research Station, a part of the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Opened in 1979, the laboratory was the result of over fifteen years of efforts to secure land, funding, and a mandate for the institution.


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Image to the Right: Senator Byrd's 1963 proposal for the scope of research to be conducted at the Fruit Research Station.

By Jody Brumage

​Anyone driving through West Virginia today will see yard signs and billboards expressing support and opposition to the construction of pipelines in the state. The current debate centers largely on pipelines built to transport natural gas, but fifty-six years ago, a similar battle was fought in the state over coal slurry pipelines. The technology for these overland transport systems was developed in the early-1960s. Slurry pipelines operate in one of two ways: the coal is pulverized and mixed with water or it is pressed into logs which are floated through the pipelines to their destination. Soon after this technology became available, West Virginia’s mine operators began exploring ways that pipelines could open new markets for coal extracted from the Mountain State where exportation had always relied primarily upon railroad and river barge transport.

By Jody Brumage

​“The destruction from this storm goes beyond anything we’ve known in recent years. It will test the resources of all volunteer organizations, private sector help, and state, local, and federal governments.” President George H.W. Bush delivered these grave remarks in the White House briefing room on August 26, 1992 as the nation was realizing the horrific damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew. Florida and Louisiana were among the hardest hit areas. Two days prior to his statement to the press, President Bush toured Florida. He planned to visit Louisiana in the next few days to assess damages there too. The recovery effort that lay ahead was a daunting one as communities dealt with the loss of human lives and billions of dollars in damage.​

By Jody Brumage

Early in his senatorial career, Robert C. Byrd recognized the potential benefits of expanding the role of the U.S. Forest Service in West Virginia as both a means of supporting conservation, recreation, and the state's timber industry. While the forest service had been a presence in the state since 1915 when the first tract of land was purchased for the future Monongahela National Forest, the agency's activity in the state greatly increased in the early-1960s. In an earlier blog post, we discussed the Forest Products Marketing Laboratory built during Senator Byrd's first term in the U.S. Senate in Princeton, West Virginia. This week's blog looks at a second laboratory, built in Morgantown in 1967.

​By Jody Brumage

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives each hold large collections of portraits depicting influential and power members of each body. Among the portraits preserved by the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives is one of West Virginia Congressman Harley O. Staggers, Sr. The protrait was commissioned in 1976 by a resolution of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Congressman Staggers becoming chairman. Attributed to Charles J. Fox, the oil portrait measures 30 by 40 inches and portrays its subject seated at the edge of his desk, surrounded by papers with the flag of the United States in the background. On April 6, 1976, the portrait was unveiled by Congressman Staggers' wife, Mary, in a ceremony in the committee's hearing room.

​By Jody Brumage

In December 1961, four members of West Virginia's congressional delegation made visits to soldiers at Fort Meade in Maryland and Camp Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia. Their visit came after President Kennedy called for several West Virginia units to be moved from reserve to active duty in response to escalating tension in Germany between the Soviet Union and the western allied powers. The "Berlin Crisis" raised fears of a new explosion of violence in the Cold War when the Soviet Union ordered the withdraw of western forces from the city of Berlin in June 1961. By the end of the year, the crisis resulted in the partitioning of the city between east and west, divided by the formidable Berlin Wall.