Create West Virginia

The Gateway New Economy Council is a group of volunteers in the Eastern Panhandle Region of West Virginia dedicated to serving as a catalyst to ensure the region will have the opportunity to participate fully in, and benefit from, the “New Economy” of the twenty-first century.

By CHARLY MARKWART
Princeton Times

PRINCETON — For many years, local art entrepreneur Lori McKinney has envisioned her native Mercer County becoming what she calls an “arts destination.” Now, the co-owner of Princeton’s RiffRaff Arts Collective is calling on her fellow local artists and art enthusiasts to join her in that dream by participating in the county’s first annual All Together Arts Week.

The City of Welch got a lot of press in July when Mayor Martha Moore announced plans for a riverfront park.

A park on the Tug River? In Welch?

The mayor can be excused if she gets a little testy when people outside McDowell County suggest that maybe everyone who’s still there should pick up and leave.

By Sarah Halstead

Classes in elementary Arabic and Kiswahili are underway as of August in Mercer County schools, taught by native speakers who are visiting Fulbright language teaching assistants at Bluefield State College.

A group of West Virginia architects who are passionate about community development are positioning the state in the vanguard of creating livable, economically sustainable communities.

They are so committed, in fact, that they are offering services free of charge.

By Heidi Schmalbach

By Jeanne Mozier

Does your community benefit from cooperation between arts and humanities groups, business leaders, social and jurisdictional agencies? If the answer is yes, you may as well get the gold star that proves it.

The West Virginia Certified Arts Community designation is for communities that reap the benefit of high-level cooperation in town and county leadership.

By Sarah Halstead

Inc. Magazine recently published its 2008 list of the 500 fastest-growing companies. Many West Virginians were proud to see beBetter Networks of Charleston ranked 15, and Innovative Management & Technology Services of Fairmont ranked 323 on the list. Morgantown’s Augusta Systems, Centra Bank Incorporated and KeyLogic Systems, and Advanced Technical Solutions of Scott Depot are on Inc.’s expanded list of 5,000 fastest growing companies.

Google Protea Biosciences Inc. and the first thing that comes up on your computer screen is “Click here to discover employment opportunities…”

That’s one proof that what proponents say of tech-based economic development is true: investment in university-based research results in private-sector jobs.