The Byrd Traveling Exhibit Tour Begins Final Leg in WV’s Potomac Highlands

By Jay Wyatt

Last week, the Byrd traveling exhibit, Robert C. Byrd: Senator, Statesman, West Virginian made its third appearance in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands at Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College.  The College is located in Moorefield, the county seat of Hardy County, along the beautiful Corridor H Highway on a bluff overlooking the South Branch Valley.  Eastern WV Community and Tech serves the educational needs of students from across Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Mineral, Pendleton, and Tucker Counties and offers numerous Associate Degrees in Applied Sciences, Sciences, and the Arts.   We thank Dr. Chuck Terrell, Eastern’s President, and Michael O’Leary, President’s Office Coordinator, for their eager support of the exhibit.​

Dr. Chuck Terrell, President of Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College, and the Byrd Center's Jay Wyatt with the exhibit.

The legacy of Senator Byrd’s career can be viewed in several projects around Moorefield, including Corridor H, a segment of the Appalachian Development Highway System, which crosses the South Branch Valley just north of Moorefield.  Senator Byrd also secured $4.2 million in appropriations for building a flood protection system along the South Fork River in downtown Moorefield which was heavily damaged by the floods of 1985.
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The exhibit will remain on display at Eastern until Monday, September 25 and through the 2017 Hardy County Heritage Weekend celebration, September 22 - 24.  Moorefield is situated along the South Branch of the Potomac River and was the site of conflicts between English settlers and Native Americans during the French and Indian War as well as a small cavalry engagement during the Civil War.  Many of its historic homes date to the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Hardy County Heritage Weekend celebrates the town’s long history each year by welcoming thousands of visitors for three days of historic home tours and heritage walks, free movie screenings, living history and storytelling events, live music, as well as craft and food tents.

Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College, Moorefield, WV.

​The traveling exhibit’s stay at Eastern WV Community and Technical College marks the first stop on the last leg of the exhibit tour.  Beginning on October 2, the exhibit will be on display at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College in Martinsburg, and in early November, it will move to the Martinsburg Public Library.  And finally, after more than a year and a half on the road and thousands of miles traversed across the Mountain State, the exhibit tour will conclude with an extended stay in Charleston, WV to commemorate Senator Byrd’s centennial birth day.  The exhibit will be on display at the West Virginia Culture Center from November 17-December 4 and from January 3 – 31, 2018.  In between, the exhibit will be on display at the WV State Capitol.