In Around West Virginia today: The Blenko Glass company has started making its 2016 West Virginia Day piece, Mountaineer coaches visit Beckley, and more.
n The Blenko Glass Company has started making "patience pride," its 2016 West Virginia Day piece. The vase will look like a fish, with the fishes tail opening near the top where a normal vase opening would go. The piece will celebrate West Virginia's fishing patronage. Arlon Baylis, who designed the piece, said he spent many hours talking to Blenko employees about their fishing experiences and that he wanted the piece to look like many different fishes, not just a trout or large-mouth bass.
n West Virginia University basketball coach Bob Huggins, football coach Dana Holgorsen and athletic director Shane Lyons took a visit to a Beckley pizza parlor as part of the university's Coaches Caravan. While in Beckley, Lyons and Holgorsen discussed some topics on fans' minds, like how WVU feels about Big 12 expansion (we'll see) and how good WVU will be next year (we'll see).
n A Fairmont couple was arrested on child neglect charges. The 9-year-old child's father, Bobby Wayne Karnes, 30, was allegedly taking some of his child's medication and is allegedly addicted to Suboxone. Both Karnes and his wife Chrystal D. Myers, 33, were arrested on one count of child neglect creating risk of injury, which is a felony.
n All five of West Virginia's spellers were eliminated from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Wednesday. Katie Mills, of Raleigh County; Asritha Sure, of Morgantown; and Mariana Linda AlKhouri, of Wheeling; all misspelled words in the competition. Lucas Mooney, the son of U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., and Andrew Gould, from Weston, failed to secure enough points on the test to make it to the next round, despite spelling their words right in the competition. The West Virginians weren't the only ones eliminated Wednesday, we also saw the fall of the adorable 6-year-old Akash Vukoti from San Angelo Texas. Vukoti was the youngest speller in the competition.