West Virginia University - News and Information Services

2008 Mountaineer Idol finalists join 6-year-old Saige Sprouse, a WVU Children's Hospital patient, and others in singing "Jingle Bells" during Tuesday's (Dec. 2) 21st annual Woodburn lighting ceremony. During the holiday season, 7,000 miniature white lights outline Woodburn Hall, WVU's second-oldest building. As part of this year's lighting festivities, members of the Student Government Association collected toy and financial donations for the Students Helping Other People (SHOP) and Toy Mountain programs.

WVU researchers are looking at whether a smokeless, spitless tobacco product aimed at young adults is catching on, and they have found that RJ Reynolds' Camel Snus contains surprisingly high levels of nicotine. "The Camel Snus currently being marketed in West Virginia contains double the nicotine of an earlier tested version sold elsewhere in the United States," said Bruce Adkins of the state Division of Tobacco Prevention in Charleston. Cindy Tworek, a member of WVU's Translational Tobacco Reduction Research Program, is conducting a survey of several hundred young adults on or around college campuses in West Virginia to see whether the product's marketing has scored a hit. She hopes to have results compiled early in 2009.

Roy L. Cooke, president of the Miner's Day Memorial Association, will help WVU celebrate Miner's Day at 7 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Mountainlair Gluck Theatre. One of the original "Rocket Boys," will speak about the role that miners have played in America. Cooke grew up in Coalwood, where his father worked in the mines. In the 1950s, he and his friends at Big Creek High School built and launched homemade rockets and formed the Big Creek Missile Agency. They were known as the "Rocket Boys" made famous in Homer Hickam's book and the 1999 movie "October Sky."

National Research Center for Coal and Energy staff pack a vehicle with cans and boxes as part of the NRCCE's first Turkey Bowl event. The center collected 950 food items and raised nearly $500 for the Bartlett House and Scott's Run Settlement House during the week of Nov. 10. Six teams of staff members competed to see who could gather the most food and money for the two local charities. "Team Winner, Winner Turkey Dinner" won bragging rights as the most generous group. Team members included NRCCE Director Richard Bajura, student worker Jimmy Ludovici, engineering scientist Ed Crowe, administrative assistant Howard Franks Jr., accounting clerk Sharon Belmaggio, program coordinator Kathleen Cullen, program assistant Angela Shock, IOF-WV Director Carl Irwin, program coordinator Frank Saus and student worker Aleisha Fox.

Graham Porter, a WVU education major from Petersburg, makes the study of cartography and topography fun and interesting for a seventh-grade class at Suncrest Middle School. Porter is also helping redefine the role of the land-grant university in the 21st century because WVU is one of 75 schools across the country to sign on with a federal effort geared to the recruitment and retention of science and math teachers in K-12 classrooms. It's known as the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative.