The following Putnam County-related news and feature items were among those published in recent editions of The Charleston Gazette, Charleston Daily Mail, Saturday Gazette-Mail and Sunday Gazette-Mail:
Poca man pleads guilty to five charges in sex abuse
A Poca man originally indicted on 10 charges, including incest and attempting to run over a police officer, pleaded guilty to five of those charges Feb. 3 and faces up to 80 years in prison.
Patrick Glen Moore, 41, pleaded guilty in Putnam Circuit Court to three counts of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian, one count of incest and one count of failure to change his sex offender registration.
Moore was arrested June 22 and charged with four felony sexual abuse counts, in addition to assaulting an officer, fleeing in a vehicle, improper passing, failure to stop/yield, reckless driving and registration violation, after he allegedly tried to run over a Hurricane police officer during a traffic stop on June 14.
Magistrate Kylene Dunlap Brown dismissed the misdemeanor traffic violations at the request of county prosecutors and the Sheriff's Department because additional felony charges of sexual abuse were being filed against Moore.
Police arrested Moore in June for abusing a 16- and a 15-year-old girl for five years, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court last summer.
According to the complaint, he showed the girls pornographic movies and had sex with each of them while the other was present.
Moore's plea agreement last week is not the first time he has faced charges of sexual abuse.
In October 2000, he pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse. He abused a 12-year-old family friend in the fall of 1998, while the child's mother was shopping. He was sentenced to one to five years in prison on that charge, and served 2 1/2 years.
In May 1993, Moore also pleaded guilty to felony arson charges. He was placed on five years probation.
As a result his plea agreement last week, Moore will face 10 to 20 years and a $500 to $5,000 fine for each charge of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian; five to 15 years in prison and a $500 and $15,000 for incest; and one to five years for failing to provide registration changes as a sex offender.
(The Charleston Gazette)
Hurricane teen winner of Toyota card contest
Tyler Woodward is the winner of the Toyota Buffalo plant's annual holiday card design contest.
Woodward, 17, of Hurricane, won a $500 scholarship. He plans on majoring in graphic design at West Virginia University in the fall.
The 2009 card theme was volunteerism.
The students were recognized in a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Putnam Career and Technical Center. The 2009 card competition was delayed because of inclement weather. The card was not sent to the Buffalo plant's employees, suppliers and friends, but company officials said the winning design is timeless and can be used in the future.
Woodward's winning design features an evergreen bough over a blue world globe holiday ornament with a crackling fireplace in the background. He superimposed a photo of a tree branch and globe over a photo of a fireplace. Woodward added a red bow to the globe. A star marks the Buffalo plant's location.
"I gave the background a blur so you could really concentrate on the globe," he said.
Inside Woodward's card are photos of Toyota team members and students from Buffalo High School and Winfield Middle School, helping with Toyota's volunteer community projects during the economic downturn.
Steven Phelix, 18, of Scott Depot, had the runner-up entry. He won a $200 scholarship. Phelix plans on majoring in graphic design at the Pittsburgh Art Institute in the fall.
His card features his original drawing of a large gift box with a Santa on the left and a crackling fireplace in the background. Across the bottom the card says, "To those who help us help the community."
The contestants are all students in Jennifer Bayless' graphic design class at the Putnam Career and Technical Center.
The students toured Toyota's Buffalo plant before working on their card designs. They made rough drafts of their concepts and presented them to the Buffalo plant's senior managers, who reviewed them and made comments.
"It was a learning experience about pleasing the customer and two-way communications," said Mike Lutz, the plant's general manager of administration.
Bayless said, "Artists don't tend to take criticism very well. But I teach that your art is going to be the means of selling a product or service, so you've always got to be open to constructive criticism, to improvement. The client gives you the paycheck so you've got to pay attention to the client."
"She won't let us turn in anything that isn't perfect," Phelix said of his teacher.
Putnam Career and Technical Principal Mike Erwin said, "We very much appreciate the involvement Toyota has with our school and students. This is a great learning opportunity for our students. It gives them a real-world experience. It gives them an opportunity to present themselves in a professional manner."
Kevin Fields, the Buffalo plant's manager of corporate planning and development, said, "This is something we really enjoy being a part of. We think it encourages the right things in the schools."
Sandra Maynard, Toyota human resources and external affairs specialist, said, "In our plant, you've got to be creative and solve problems" - the very qualities required in the card competition.
Toyota has sponsored the competition for 11 years.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
School levy renewal
to go before voters
on May 11
Putnam County school board members voted last week to put renewal of the school system's special levy on the May 11 primary election ballot.
Putnam voters have supported the excess levy for more than 50 years.
Putnam Schools Superintendent Chuck Hatfield said voters would be asked to approve spending the levy money on the same items as they were five years ago, when it was last renewed.
The levy raises more than $16 million in property taxes. It comes in addition to the regular school levy, which is provided for in the state constitution. Its rates are set by the state Legislature.
As proposed, the levy would provide $1.3 million for new buildings, additions, renovations and repairs to existing buildings.
Most of the money from the levy funds - more than $12.6 million - would continue to pay for county salary supplements, substitute teacher costs and athletic coaching positions.
Levy money also is used to partially fund county libraries and 4-H programs, provide for allowances to retired employees and aid in purchasing instructional equipment, textbooks and supplies.
School board Treasurer Bill Duncan noted the special levy tax rate would remain at 22.95 cents per $100 of Class I assessed property; 45.90 cents per $100 of Class II assessed property; and 91.80 cents per $100 of Class III and IV assessed property.
Taxable property classes range from residential to business properties, either inside or outside of a municipality.
For homeowners, the levy would mean about $275 per year on a home assessed at $100,000.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
Mother in voice recorder incident
runs for school board
Putnam County Board of Education candidate Kathie Crouse's name might not ring a bell, but her recent troubles with Putnam schools might.
Shortly after school started last fall, Crouse sent a digital voice recorder to school with her 5-year-old son after he started acting strangely at home.
After reviewing hours of recordings, Crouse said she heard the teacher being verbally abusive to her son and other students. The teacher and aide for the class have since been suspended with pay.
But Crouse said her candidacy isn't an offshoot of her troubles with the Putnam school system. Her friend Leslie Delapas, president of the Winfield Elementary Parent-Teacher Association, encouraged her to run several months ago.
The Fairmont native says she took her time deciding. She talked to family members, friends and church and community members.
"I wanted to make sure that I was making the correct decision and that I could make a positive impact on the county school system," she said.
Crouse says all the feedback she received was positive, so she decided to file.
The mother of five says she worked full-time while raising her three oldest boys, now 17, 18, and 20, but always took time to be involved in her children's schools.
Now that she works part time as a server at Applebee's while building her photography business, Crouse has more time to volunteer.
She is chairperson of the Appalachian Council Head Start's parent committee, vice chairperson of its policy council and a member of several of the organization's other committees.
Crouse also recently joined the West Virginia Head Start Association's board of directors.
She says that experience, along with her experience as a parent, would serve her well on the board of education.
"I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I've been through all the schools, that's for sure," Crouse said.
"We need to get some people in the board that would use some common sense, that were parents, that had seen what was wrong with the schools, what needed fixed.
"I just find that the Board of Education needs a little bit of common sense in it."
After several visits to board meetings and reviewing minutes of past meetings, Crouse said members don't discuss issues enough.
"It seemed that everybody on the board voted 'yes' for everything," she said. "I never saw anybody being the lone person going 'no, I don't think so.' I cannot put a grasp on some of the things the board seems to vote for."
Crouse said she's particularly displeased with the way the board handled her son's teacher and aide.
"It took them six weeks before they even suspended the teachers," she said.
She said the employees were sent to other schools to work between the time they left Buffalo Elementary and were suspended, a move which "made no sense" to Crouse.
She's also displeased that the teacher and aide were suspended with pay.
"I think it's completely idiotic that they're still paying them," she said. "I wouldn't have given suspension with pay. That's a paid vacation."
She believes suspended employees shouldn't be paid and says the county could give them back pay if the board later finds an employee shouldn't have been suspended.
Crouse said her sense of fiscal responsibility would be an asset to the school board.
"I just think that they waste a lot of money and they don't do what they should do," she said.
She said she wants to see that the $56.7 million the Putnam board will borrow through a bond sale is spent correctly.
"I want to make sure that they spend the bond money correctly and this time Buffalo gets what it was promised 30 years ago," she said.
Crouse says Buffalo High School teachers don't have a lounge and some teachers have to share classrooms because of a lack of space. If elected, she says she wants to make sure Buffalo receives its new high school.
Part of the bond proposal approved by Putnam voters calls for the school system to spend more than $20 million for a new, 88,000-square-foot Buffalo High.
Crouse runs several Web sites, including the Charleston High School alumni site, www.CharlestonHighWV.com. She has set up www.Crouse4Putnam.com to promote her campaign.
Winfield area parent Paul David Thompson joined the race last month, as well.
Delapas also filed to run for a seat on the board but says she's dropping out now that Jack Gordon, former Winfield Elementary principal, has announced his candidacy.
"I love Jack Gordon," she said. "I'm so glad he's running."
Delapas says her son, who is in fifth grade at Winfield Elementary, was at the school for Gordon's last two years on the job. Through her participation with the PTA, she and Gordon became friends.
"He's hysterical; he's a great buddy," she said. "When he retired, everyone was brokenhearted."
She said Gordon cares so much for kids and their success that "hands down, he needs to be on the board."
Delapas' only complaint? She has lost her $25 filing fee.
Board incumbents Craig Spicer, William "Butch" Legg and Debbie Phillips are up for re-election this year, and all three are running.
Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood says state law allows the school board to seat no more than two members per district. Since Putnam Districts 2 and 3 already have two members on the board - Spicer and Jack Coyner in District 3 and Phillips and Samuel Sentelle in District 2 - any candidate running in those districts will have to be the top vote-getter to win the seat.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
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