SPIRIT of JEFFERSON
and FARMER'S ADVOCATE
NEWS
PAGE A3
Wednesday, April 18, 201S
Deadline for 2018 W.Va. writing contest nearing
SHEPHERDSTOWN - !/:i(!! 1
Shepherd University is look-
ing for great original fiction
from writers who live in West
Virginia or are enrolled at a
school in the state.
The deadline for submis-
sions to the West V'irginia
Fiction Competition comes
May 1. A committee at Shep-
herd will review the entries
and cull finalists and theni
award-winning author Karen
Spears Zacharias will select a
winner this fall.
Zacharias, a 61-year-old
feature writer whose work has
been featured in The Wash-
ington Post, National Public
Radio, CNN, The New York
Times and other outlets, may
be best known for her trilogy
set in Christian Bend, Tenn.
- "Mother of Rain," "Burdy"
and "Christian Bend."
"Mother of Rain," which
won Zacharias the Weather-
ford Award for Best in South- winner - the West Virginia
ern Appalachian Fiction, has Fiction Competition also will
been picked as the 2018 "One provide critiques of the final-
Book One Community" com- ists' stories by Zacharias. One
mon read for West Virginia. of last year's finalists called
The book was published in that expert feedback "as ex-
2013. citing as winning first prize."
Besides cash prizes - in- When Zacharias is in Shep-
eluding $500 for the contest's herdstown in September, she
will serve as the university's cept the Appalachian HerE-
Appalachian Heritage Writ- tage Writer's Award.
er in Residence and will ac- During her time on cam-
LEFT: Acclaimed author
Karen Spears Zacharias will
choose the winner of the
annual West Virginia Fiction
Competition from finalists
selected by a Shepherd
University committee. The
deadline to submit an original
fictional story comes May
1. Her first novel, 2013's
"Mother of Rain," won the
Weatherford Award for Best
in Southern Appalachian
Fiction and is the state "One
Book One Community"
common read for West
Virginia for 2018.
pus, Zacharias's work will
include helping to create
teaching tools for West Vir-
ginia teachers who will teach
her books and serving as ed-
itorial adviser for the latest
"Anthology of Appalachian
Writers."
Joining Shepherd as the
sponsor of the West Virginia
Fiction Competition is the Li-
brary Association's West Vir-
ginia Center for the Book.
Ethics
Auditors noted that, in 2013,
Loughry had one of the original
desks used by justices when the East
Wing of the Capitol opened in 1927,
commonly called the "Cass Gilbert"
desks, moved to his Charleston resi-
dence. He had the desk returned to
the court in November 2017, follow-
ing a Gazette-Mail column specu-
lat'mg about furniture missing from
the court offices.
"He took it home. He was not au-
thorized to do so, but he kept it at his
residence," legislative auditor Den-
ny Rhodes told the legislative Post-
Audits Committee on Monday.
"The desk is owned by the state
of West Virginia, and has been ap-
praised at $42,000," the audit states.
"Following a media inquiry regard-
ing the propriety of having state
property inside a personal residence,
Justice Loughry returned the desk to
the court."
Loughry also had taken a leather
couch that then-Justice Joe Albright
had purchased for his court office
in 2001. The couch had remained
in the Capitol after Albright's death
in 2009. Loughry also returned the
couch, although it was unclear if it
is state property.
Despite claims that the court had a
longstanding policy of allowing jus-
tices to use state-owned furniture to
fumish home offices, a Freedom of
Information request by the Gazette-
Mail found that there is no written
policy, and no evidence that there had
ever been a verbal policy permitt'mg
such state-furnished home offices.
According to legislative auditors,
"Based upon the Ethics Commis-
sion's prior opinions, it appears that
Justice Loughry's use of state equip-
ment for personal purposes could
constitute private gain and possibly
violate the Ethics Act."
Auditors added, "The West Vir-
ginia Ethics Commission has the
jurisdiction to determine whether
these uses of state property are a
violation of the Ethics Act, and the
Legislative Auditor has reported its
concerns to the commission, and
defers to its determination whether
any violations have occurred."
In addition to the desk, the audit
found that, from January 2013 to
September 2016, Loughry reserved
one of three Buick sedans owned by
the court for travel on 212 days. Of
that, 148 days, or 70 percent of the
reservations, had no reason given
for use of the vehicle;
Notably, the audit found, Loughry
reserved vehicles for most of De-
cember in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In
two of those years, they were re-
served through the Christmas holi-
days and into early January.
"The Supreme Court was in recess
during all the December dates, and
LEFT: State Supreme Court Justice
Allen Loughry, 47, wrote the 2006
book, "Don't Buy Another Vote, I
Won't Pay for a Landslide," about
corruption in West Virginia starting
in the 1860s. The Tucker County na-
tive graduated from the Perley Isaac
Reed School of Journalism at West
Virginia University, then earned a
law degree from Capital University
Law School in Columbus, Ohio.
no destination or substantiation is
listed for any of these time frames,"
the audit notes.
The audit also cites a 2016 court
memorandum in which other jus-
tices questioned whether Loughry
was using the state car strictly for
business purposes, "to which Jus-
tice Loughry made it clear that in his
view, he should not have to report a
destination or a purpose. His posi-
tion was, once he said he was travel-
ing on state business, that should be
the end of the inquiry."
The audit also raises issues with
Loughry's use of rental vehicles
when he flew to out-of-state con-
ferences, citing a "disproportionate
number of miles recorded com-
pared to the actual round-trip mile-
age from the airport to the hotel."
According to the audit, Loughry
rented vehicles during trips to Mon-
treal, California, Texas, Nebraska,
Arizona and Massachusetts from
2013 to 2017. Each time, the mile-
age on the rental car receipt exceed-
ed the round-trip mileage between
the airport and conference hotel by
anywhere from 171 to 580 miles.
The total additional travel of 2,874
miles cost the state $2,669 in unnec-
essary expenditures that the audit
concludes "appear to have been for
personal use."
"Based on this analysis, it appears
possible that Justice Loughry or a
travel companion allowed to use
rental cars, vacationed on the state's
dollar," the audit says.
On March 28, the Legislative Au-
ditor sent a letter to Loughry to deter-
mine if he had made any reimburse-
ments to the state for the personal
use of the desk, the state vehicle or
the rental cars, but did not receive a
response, according to the audit.
Legislative Manager Aaron Allred
said that, before Loughry's removal
as chief justice in February, he was
uncooperative with legislative au-
(See ETHICS PageA10)
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