With his sights set on the heavens, as a boy Christopher “Mookie” Walker dreamed only of flying. Soon after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, he found himself on a career path that allowed him to spread his wings and explore his passion for flight.
West Virginia native Dr. Patrice Harris is taking the national stage in health care leadership this year as the first-ever African-American female president of the American Medical Association, the largest association of physicians and medical students in the U.S.
In the afterward of his popular 2015 book “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic,” Sam Quinones ponders the decline of community as a predecessor to the drug epidemic in America. “We wound up dangerously separate from each other—whether in poverty or affluence,” he writes. “Kids no longer play in the street. Parks are underused. Dreamland lies buried beneath a strip mall. Why then do we wonder that heroin is everywhere? In our isolation, heroin thrives; that’s its natural habitat.
Around the world, countless people are affected by chronic pain and degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s on a daily basis. In West Virginia, a world-class team of researchers, scientists and physicians from across the globe have come together at the West Virginia University (WVU) Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI) to investigate the causes of these crippling health problems and search for cures.
In celebration of those who have adopted our Mountain Mama as their own, “Talent Transplant” recognizes the Mountaineers who were born elsewhere but relocated here, embraced our beloved state and now help us work toward a brighter future. Donald Hitchcock and Paul Yandura lived and worked in Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years before their journey to the Mountain State began. Searching for an escape from the fast pace of the nation’s capital, the couple began spending weekends in Lost River, WV, a rural mountain town, over a decade ago.
Sixteen cases of human trafficking were reported in West Virginia in 2017, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, a hotline serving victims and survivors. This statistic seems low, even for a state with a population of 1.8 million.