In Around West Virginia today: Grammy winner to perform in Ashland, a Harrison County man loses a testicle in a fight, and the New York Times opines on the devastation caused by mountaintop removal.
n The furnishings stolen from a historic black church in the New River Gorge area have been recovered, according to The Register-Herald. Thanks to tips, police learned the pews, tables, benches and chairs had been sold to an antique store.
n Jason Isbell, who recently won two Grammys, will perform at the Paramount Arts Center in Ashland, Kentucky on June 24, according to The Herald-Dispatch. He last played in the area in March 2014, when he sold out the V Club in Huntington. He won Best Americana Album for "Something More Than Free" and Best American Roots Song for "24 Frames." Isbell is a former member of the Drive-by Truckers.
n Five years ago Tuesday, Deputy U.S. Marshal Derek Hotsinpiller was shot and killed while serving a warrant in Elkins. The mayor of Elkins declared Feb. 16 Derek Hotsinpiller Day during a special ceremony, WDTV reports.
"The best way that we remember Derek is by doing what we do everyday, coming to work and catching bad guys. That's what he loved to do," says Terry Moore, Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal. "That's what we did today to honor him and remember him in a positive light."
n A Clarksburg man has lost a testicle after his roommate kicked him in the groin, The Exponent Telegram reports. The roommate, 26-year-old Justin Paul Humphrey, was convicted of malicious assault.
n The New York Times wrote an editorial on the destruction caused by mountaintop removal in West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia after a study found that parts of the state are 40 percent flatter than they were before excavation.
"As the destructive coal mining process known as mountaintop removal ebbs in Appalachia," they wrote, "it is leaving behind what amounts to its own grim field of tombstones: A grossly disfigured landscape pocked with decapitated mountains standing flat as mesas and inhospitable to forest restoration."
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.