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Dave Foggin

PARKERSBURG – It will be a three-way race for both the Republican and Democrat nominations for the West Virginia House of Delegates seat for District 14.

The district covers portions of southern Wood County and western Wirt County.

Incumbent Del. Dave Foggin, R-Wood, is facing challengers Andy Daniel and Angie Adams in the GOP primary.

The Democratic primary features Jim Marion, Crystal Dawn Butcher and Jonathan White.

The winners of the primaries will face each other in the November general election.

Andy Daniel

Foggin, 54, a physics and Earth science teacher at Parkersburg South High School, is running for a third term.

“I really want to help people,” he said. “I want to represent the people where I live fairly and honestly.

“I want to make sure they have a conservative voice in Charleston.”

Some of his priorities involve education, agriculture and natural resources, as well as “freedom issues.”

Foggin said there are people in Charleston with a lot of business knowledge that he learns from when considering those issues.

Angie Adams

“When someone has ideas, I try to learn about those ideas and make educated decisions on what will help our community,” he said. “I am in Charleston to make sure any change to the state’s business climate is good for our area.”

Foggin said he does not accept campaign contributions from anyone.

“I want to have a clear mind and a clear conscience when I make a vote,” he said. “I don’t want to feel like I am beholden to anyone who has given me money.

“I figure that is the way it should be. If you have a good product, it will sell itself.”

Daniel, 46, owns 15 local businesses with 80 employees and said he feels like he can make a difference for the state.

Jim Marion

“I spent the last 20 years creating jobs, fighting for infrastructure and economic development, and I have a real talent for that,” he said. “I feel that is what the state needs.”

He spoke of his Christian beliefs and being pro-life and pro-Second Amendment as examples of his conservative values.

“I can go down to Charleston and make the right choices,” Daniel said.

He owns 3D Construction; Infinity Group; Fairman Building Components in Glenville; 304 Junction, a shared vendor mall with over 120 vendors; and is part owner of Rivertown Aviation and Rivertown Aircraft Services at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport. He is also the vice president of the Wood County Airport Authority and chairman of the airport’s Economic Development Committee and has traveled to air industry trade shows to work to generate interest in aviation businesses locating to the airport.

“I am the kind of guy that understands what it takes to make a payroll,” he said. “I understand … the decisions that are made in legislation and how they affect businesses, employees and how they affect the economy here in the Mid-Ohio Valley and Wirt County.”

Crystal Dawn Butcher

Adams, 51, owned Slice of Life Photography and retired from that a few years ago. She is currently doing volunteer work at her church, teaching a women’s Bible class and caring for elderly family members. She has been the chairwoman of the Wirt County Republican Executive Committee for the past 19 years.

“I am very passionate about conservative politics,” she said.

She spoke about her Christian values; being 100% pro-life; believing there are only two genders created by God, male and female; protecting young people by not allowing boys in girl spaces; and freedom issues where people are able to make decisions about their lives better than the government can.

She said she supports school choice, medical freedom and the Second Amendment and described herself as a fiscal conservative.

“I think the government needs to be very responsible with all of the money they are spending,” Adams said. “All of the money they are spending is money that came out of someone’s pocket.”

Voters have communicated to her that lowering taxes and affordability are important, Adams said. Many people want to support special needs individuals with their taxes, but they get frustrated when they see money go to people who do not want to work.

“I want to be a voice for those (taxpayers), because a lot of them don’t feel like they have a voice,” Adams said.

She said she wants to bring economic development and businesses to the area to provide jobs. Employers have told her they have had trouble finding workers in the area which she ties into the drug problem. The area needs to have a ready workforce, including giving high school students training to be ready for jobs when they enter the workforce if they decide not to go on to college.

“We need to make sure they are equipped to do the jobs that businesses are looking for,” Adams said.

She said she also wants to hold regular town hall meetings to hear from voters. She said she is funding her campaign solely from donations from private individuals who agree with her goals and will not accept money from special interest groups or political action committees.

“I want to be sure we have transparency in government to make sure the constituency and the voters can see exactly what is happening,” she said. “I want us to be fully open.”

On the Democratic side, Marion, 72, is a retired UPS driver and member of the Teamsters union who has run for the House of Delegates a number of times.

“I feel the majority of the people in Wood and Wirt counties are not fairly represented in Charleston,” he said. “Most of our elected people for Wood and Wirt counties are down in Charleston for big business or for themselves. I don’t think that is right.”

He wants to go to the House of Delegates to “get meaningful stuff done in the Legislature” that did not involve renaming mountains or trying to bring corporal punishment back to schools.

Marion said he wants to focus on education and paying teachers more. They got a raise recently that was offset by the rising cost of their insurance.

“They are going to end up making less, and that is why teachers are leaving West Virginia,” Marion said. “They can get paid more in the bordering states.

“We need to keep our teachers here and bring in more teachers.”

He calls the “right to work” law passed a few years ago a “right to work for less” law that is trying to break the unions and pay workers less. He wants to see the law done away with so the state can have better unions and better-paying jobs.

“It would bring in more people to West Virginia,” Marion said. “We are continually losing people, because they are going to other states where they can find better-paying jobs, better roads and better education systems.”

Marion said he put two kids through the public school system. If someone wants to home school or put their child in a private school, Marion said he doesn’t have a problem with that but does not think taxpayers have to help pay for it.

“I want to represent all of the people of Wood and Wirt counties, not just some special interests,” he said.

Butcher, 47, is a married mother of twins and the executive director of a nonprofit dedicated to supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s of business administration, which she said gives her a firm understanding of the legal system and the fiscal responsibility required to run complex organizations.

“I am running because I believe in the power of public education, but I also recognize that the system needs to evolve to support modern families,” she said, saying her own family experienced some problems in the classroom.

“Instead of leaving the system, I worked to keep my kids enrolled through the hybrid model. My kids were the first students in Wood County to become hybrid learning students,” she added. “I know that is possible to do for children who may be bullied in school or need some extra help.

“I’m running to ensure no parent feels they have to choose between their child’s needs and supporting their local school.”

The hybrid model is a combination of online schooling through West Virginia Learns (the online platform offered through the public school system) and having kids in the schools at different times.

Her campaign is built on the Community Stakeholder Credit, which she described as a “landmark pro-education tax reform initiative designed to unify homeowners, renters and schools.”

She is in favor of creating a way to fund public schools that, in return, would give homeowners and renters who paid into the school levies “a full real property tax credit.

“By implementing a state-funded rebate for local school excess levies, we are creating a system where voting `yes’ for a school levy results in a net-zero cost to the taxpayer,” Butcher said.

Butcher said she is also running because she feels people deserve a representative who demands transparent government, not backroom deals. She said she wants to defend hunting and responsible gun ownership, not turn teachers into armed security. She said she wants families to make choices for their own homes and not have government act as parents to people’s children.

“For too long, the same political insiders have decided what freedoms our families should or shouldn’t have,” she said. “I believe government should work for the people, not control them.”

White could not be reached for comment.

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com