June 4, 1971: A former Boone County coal miner hijacked a plane that had flown out of Charleston and demanded the plane be flown to Israel. After the plane landed at Dulles Airport in Washington, the man allowed the passengers and flight attendant to dismount, but he held the pilots and flight engineer at gunpoint for hours before they disarmed him. It is the only documented hijacking in state history.
June 4, 1975: Clark Kessinger died in St. Albans, Kanawha County. Kessinger was among the most prolific and influential fiddlers of the 20th century, and one of West Virginia’s most important traditional musicians.
June 5, 1859: A great frost killed crops in the Preston County fields. The fields were replanted with hardy buckwheat, which was successful and became a staple crop, celebrated in the annual Buckwheat Festival in Kingwood.
June 5, 1915: Four young people were killed at Rock Springs in Hancock County when the Old Mill ride caught fire.
June 6, 1919: Historian Otis Rice was born in Hugheston, Kanawha County. Rice was named West Virginia’s first Historian Laureate in 2003.
June 6, 1979: One of the oddest events in West Virginia’s history, the “pot plane” crash, occurred on June 6, 1979. An old Douglas DC-6 cargo plane carrying 12 tons of marijuana plummeted over a hillside at Kanawha (now Yeager) Airport in Charleston. Hundreds of bales of marijuana spewed from the plane before it caught fire. Onlookers looted the marijuana, and law enforcement officials struggled for days to dispose of it all.
June 6, 1989: During the Pittston strike, about 60 miners embarked on a four-day march from Logan County to Charleston, retracing the path of the 1921 Armed March on Logan.
June 7, 1899: Congresswoman Elizabeth Kee was born in Radford, Virginia. She became West Virginia’s first female member of Congress in 1951.
June 7, 1905: Fiddler David Frank “French Carpenter was in Clay County. A notable member of a famous musical family, he learned most of his music directly from his father, Tom, the “fiddling preacher.” He influenced the great fiddler and fellow Clay Countian Wilson Douglas likely more than any other individual.
June 7, 1926: An explosion at a sand mining operation in Morgan County killed six men. Their deaths were the inspiration for the ballad “The Miner’s Doom.”
June 8, 1893: Entrepreneur Donald F. Duncan was born. Duncan was the founder of the Duncan Yo-Yo Company and the Duncan Parking Meter Corporation.
June 9, 1915: Storyteller and musician Bonnie Starkey (Collins) was born in Doddridge County. In her 50s and 60s, the “Belle of Doddridge County” honed her storytelling skills and bece one of the most popular entertainers at events such as the Morris Family Old-Time Festival, Stonewall Jackson Jubilee, state Folk Festival, Mountain State Art & Craft Fair, and Vandalia Gathering.
June 9, 1927: Karl Dewey Myers was named the state’s first poet laureate by Governor Howard Mason Gore. Myers held the post for 10 years.
June 10, 1775: The Berkeley County Riflemen were organized by Capt. Hugh Stephenson of Shepherdstown, in response to a call for Revolutionary War soldiers by Gen. George Washington.
June 10, 1921: Labor leader Daniel Vincent Maroney was born on Cabin Creek, Kanawha County. Maroney served as international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union from 1973 to 1981.
