By John McFerrin, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

The main topic of discussion was the promotion of Olivia Miller to the position of executive director. She has also filed as a candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates. Since nothing like this has ever happened before, we had to discuss the steps we would take in light of that decision.

Olivia is currently the program director. While holding that position, she has been doing many of the duties of an executive director already. She would not be prepared to assume the executive director’s position right away. There would be some training involved before she could assume the position. The Board decided to begin an eighteen-month transition period and, assuming that goes well, Olivia would fully absorb the Executive Director position in July 2027.

So far as the candidacy for the House of Delegates goes, there are things to think about. We are a tax-exempt organization. As such, our involvement in electoral politics is severely limited. In order for her to run, we would have to put strict guidelines in place on separating her campaign or political work from work done on behalf of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. We could not allow any Conservancy resources to be used in the campaign or in any political work. Positions she took as a candidate would not be represented as positions of the WVHC.

The Board committed itself to developing and enforcing guidelines that would allow Olivia to continue with a run for public office while assuring that no WVHC resources were used in her campaign. Since we are a tax-exempt organization, we could not endorse her candidacy, although we do wish her well, as we would any member who sought public service.

In a similar, but not as momentous announcement, Marilyn Shoenfeld announced that she had entered the race for the Democratic Party Executive Committee for Tucker County. It is an elected position, although it is not so highly sought after that the elections are competitive. For the most part, anyone who chooses to run will probably be elected. Marilyn’s announcement was for information only. The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy would not be involved, no Conservancy resources would be used, and her work as a member of the Democratic Party Executive Committee would be distinct from her work as WVHC President. Any guidelines we adopted for Olivia would also apply to Marilyn, at least nominally. Since there is no campaigning for the position, Marilyn seeks the problem of using Highlands Conservancy resources, etc., is unlikely to arise in practice.

Dave Johnston presented the actions of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Stewards. He did not discuss the ground operations of the Stewards. Instead, he reviewed the organizational structure that the Stewards were adopting. The idea is to have an Advisory Board and to take all the functions of the Stewards (recruitment, volunteer management, training, trail maintenance, finance, etc.) and establish committees to oversee the different functions. The goal is to make the program sustainable, both for the short term and the long term.

George Hack presented the treasurer’s report. For 2025, both membership revenue and revenue from the fund appeal were more than we budgeted. We made some revenue from our investments. As a result, our revenue exceeded our expenses for the year.

So far as budgeting for 2026 is concerned, the proposed budget is still incomplete. George does not want to propose a deficit budget. At the same time, in order to make the budget balance, we would need to substantially increase our grant funding. George is going to continue to work on the budget. We may need a special meeting to review and approve it.

There was also sad news. Larry Thomas will no longer be available to manage our investments, transfer money between our accounts, etc. He has done that for several years and has devoted a lot of time to it. We will miss him. Bob Marshall, who was our Treasurer for approximately one bazillion years, is going to take over that function.

Normally, the Board would hear what the various committees are doing. Because the Board’s time and endurance was taken up with the discussion of changes for Olivia and the budget, we skipped that part. The Committees had submitted written reports, which the individual Board members reviewed.