CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Preparing West Virginia for the economy of the future is exactly what Bob Henry Baber wants to do.
"We're just not doing what we need to do to move forward," Baber said. "West Virginia should be able to educate our people and move our people forward and be a cutting-edge state."
The 60-year-old former mayor of Richwood is one of two Mountain Party candidates competing for the party's nomination, which will be decided at convention Sunday. Six Democrats and eight Republicans are running in the May 14 primary election. This year's special gubernatorial election is to fill the remaining term of former Gov. Joe Manchin, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last year following the death of Sen. Robert C. Byrd.
Baber sees the state gradually transitioning to producing and using green energy.
"We could have solar factories making solar panels and selling them around the world," he said. "We're in a key position to make a transition to becoming the new green-energy state."
As governor, his two priorities would be "education and tying education to jobs."
As a major-gifts officer and former professor at Glenville State University, Baber praises the college's Hidden Promise program. The program identifies sixth-graders with promise, but who "need some help getting to go to college." Participants receive tutoring, mentoring and other activities designed to keep them in school and help them get into college.
A proponent of small schools, Baber wants to see the state's merit-based Promise scholarship shift to a needs-based scholarship to better help those in the middle class and below.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Preparing West Virginia for the economy of the future is exactly what Bob Henry Baber wants to do.
"We're just not doing what we need to do to move forward," Baber said. "West Virginia should be able to educate our people and move our people forward and be a cutting-edge state."
The 60-year-old former mayor of Richwood is one of two Mountain Party candidates competing for the party's nomination, which will be decided at convention Sunday. Six Democrats and eight Republicans are running in the May 14 primary election. This year's special gubernatorial election is to fill the remaining term of former Gov. Joe Manchin, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last year following the death of Sen. Robert C. Byrd.
Baber sees the state gradually transitioning to producing and using green energy.
"We could have solar factories making solar panels and selling them around the world," he said. "We're in a key position to make a transition to becoming the new green-energy state."
As governor, his two priorities would be "education and tying education to jobs."
As a major-gifts officer and former professor at Glenville State University, Baber praises the college's Hidden Promise program. The program identifies sixth-graders with promise, but who "need some help getting to go to college." Participants receive tutoring, mentoring and other activities designed to keep them in school and help them get into college.
A proponent of small schools, Baber wants to see the state's merit-based Promise scholarship shift to a needs-based scholarship to better help those in the middle class and below.
"Needs should get it first," he said. "Fair is fair."
Tying the curriculum of vocational schools to industry would help create jobs, particularly for the work force that will be demanded by development of the Marcellus Shale natural gas field, Baber said.
He said community development could be enhanced by expanding access to high-speed Internet and by empowering communities financially.
"We tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but they have no capital," Baber said. "It's not like these little towns don't know what they need to do. They know what they need to do, but the ones with no money don't have the capital to invest, so they can't do it."
One way to get money to communities for economic development projects may be through foundation grants, he said.
According to FoundationSearch.com, in 2010 over $3.1 billion in grants were distributed throughout the nation. Only $4.8 million of that went to West Virginia.
"One of the first things I would do as governor, I would hire 10 new people for the West Virginia Development Office who would do nothing but link state needs with what the foundations were giving away nationally," he said.
Calling the Republicans and Democrats "more alike than different," Baber said the Mountain Party offers voters a truly alternative platform.
