On the Saturday of opening weekend at Ohio University, as many students prepared for a day of fun and partying, Ohio University College Republicans President Dave Parkhill was heading out to Parkersburg, West Virginia, in a van with about a dozen other students.
Half an hour before noon, the group arrived in town and shook hands with the Republican nominee for governor, Bill Cole.
“He talked to us about what (his) plans were,” Parkhill, a junior studying business management, said. “How he’d fight drugs, support (Republican presidential nominee Donald) Trump and help coal.”
After the meeting, Parkhill and his group, all members of OUCR, marched in support of Cole in the Parkersburg Homecoming Parade.
“It was a great experience,” Parkhill said.
Even though the group is based in Athens, OUCR does not limit its work to inside state lines. As club alumni have flocked to West Virginia politics, so has OUCR to West Virginia events.
“There are a lot of OU alumni in Charleston, West Virgina,” Colton Henson, a 2014 OU graduate who now serves as the executive director of the West Virginia Republican Legislative Committee, said. “I was able to get in touch with a lot of people, and West Virginia wasn’t far away, so I was able to get involved in the 2014 election cycle right away.”
Henson was a member of OUCR during his time in Athens. Once he started working in Charleston, he reached out to the club. It was Henson who asked the club to come out in support of Cole.
“I’ve worked with them many times since I’ve graduated,” Henson said. “This year, (and) in the 2014 cycle, they’ve always been a supportive group.”
2014 turned out to be a big year for Republicans in the Mountain State. The state House of Delegates went Republican for the first time in 83 years, all U.S. Congressmen from the state were Republican for the first time since 1921, and Shelley Moore Capito became the state's first female senator and the first GOP senator in almost 60 years.
“It was a historic election for us,” Crescent Gallagher, who has been working for the West Virginia Republican Party ever since he graduated from OU in 2013, said. He was with OUCR for five years and served as vice president in 2010.
“I’ve kept my finger on the pulse, even helped a couple of them get jobs,” Gallagher said of his former club. “They’ve helped me by making phone calls, knocking on doors, all sorts of grassroots work.”
Gallagher now works as the campaign manager for U.S. Congressman David McKinley’s (R-WV) re-election.
“We have a huge alumni association, members who have worked for Scott Walker’s campaign, Donald Trump’s campaign, (2000 graduate) Matt Mason was the National Field Director for the Republican National Committee,” Gallagher said. “The OUCR has great training, lots of enthusiasm and is one of the best chapters in the U.S. when it comes to numbers.”
Parkhill feels that since Athens and West Virginia are both part of Appalachia, it makes political work in the adjacent state natural.
“The Athens area has a lot of the same problems that West Virginia does: drug issues, poverty, coal and energy jobs,” he said. “And I think members develop a connection because of that.”
Parkhill added that coming to Athens from his hometown of Columbus helped him understand what places in southern Ohio and West Virginia are facing.
“We’ve also had members come from smaller towns around Ohio, and I think that has helped our efforts here and in West Virginia,” Parkhill said.
