Shepherd University

When the robot R2-D2 showed up in the Star Wars movies, a lot of people probably thought it would be well in the future before something like that became reality. Well, that day is here. A robotics festival at Shepherd University this weekend featured robots that can find fire in rooms and a solar-powered balloon contraption that can be used to take photographs on a battlefield and pick up military intelligence. Robots are in use today, like those that look for explosives, said Seung-yun Kim, an assistant professor of computer information and science at Shepherd University who organized the third annual ShepRobo Fest at the Butcher Center.

Shepherd University junior Darren House believed his time volunteering Monday at the Martinsburg Boys & Girls Club was “a small step” in helping the community. “I think it would be nice to do more throughout the year,” said House, who took part in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day service project to teach young children about healthy lifestyles and helping others. A member of the college's Multicultural Leadership Team, House and more than two dozen other Shepherd University students partnered with the Burke Street Promise Neighborhood Initiative and the Catholic Campus Ministry at Shepherd University to help children at the club learn the following: • Cooking with herbs • How to stuff and tie no-sew pillows for an infusion clinic • Assemble “necessity” kits containing travel size toiletries for area homeless.

An equipment failure knocked out the 15 outdoor police emergency call boxes on the Shepherd University campus Saturday following a systemwide failure, said Ed Boober, Shepherd's acting police chief. It could take up to 10 days to fix, Boober said. When a call is made at a box to number 5202, it goes directly to an officer's hand-held radio for immediate response. While the system is down, students and others should call 911 in an emergency. The calls don't automatically transfer to the county's 911 system unless the officer puts them through.

McCrae Nicole Wright has been selected to represent the West Virginia Horticulture Society at the 86th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. Wright is a 2012 graduate of Martinsburg (W.Va.) High School, where she participated in Key Club and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She also was the historian of DECA and a cheerleader. Wright is a freshman majoring in general studies at Shepherd University. Wright was a princess at the 33rd Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival and has participated in dance since the age of 5. Wright is the daughter of Brenda and Brett Wright of Martinsburg and the granddaughter of Canna Crowell of Martinsburg and the late Robert Wright and Jean and John Phillips of Boonsboro.

Greencastle, Pa., resident James W. Klein has been hired to direct Shepherd University's new Martinsburg Center for Graduate and Professional Studies. Klein was selected from a field of 20 applicants, said Diane Melby, director of advancement at Shepherd. The new school will open in August for the fall semester at 261 Aikens Center, a three-story vacant building off Edwin Miller Boulevard. Shepherd is leasing half of the building. “We'll be using two-and-a-half floors on the right side,” Melby said.

The Really Really Free Market, a public exchange of unwanted stuff, has occupied the wall in front of Shepherd University's McMurran Hall in downtown Shepherdstown one weekend a month for the last five summers. It was a popular greeting spot, a place where the discards of daily living are dropped off to be taken to another home to be reused, reread or reworn. It was all of those things and more until earlier this month, when Shepherd University officials told the free market organizers that they could no longer set it up on the wall.

During the Vietnam War, the mother of a West Virginia soldier was notified that her son was missing in action. She wrote to then U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., for help. Byrd looked into it and learned the soldier was back in his unit. He wrote to the mother telling her that her son was safe. The soldier, now in his 70s and living in Florida, is trying to find that letter. A good place to look is among the more than 2 million Byrd's private papers and records stored in the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University.

Robert Tudor, professor of music at Jacksonville (Fla.) University, will take over Shepherd University's music department next month. Tudor, a Florida native who specializes in voice, will replace Mark McCoy as the department's chairman. McCoy resigned in July 2011 to take a job as music department chair at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. He left a department with 140 music majors, including several in the master's program, and a staff of 40 full- and part-time faculty members.

During a speech in April, Shepherd University President Suzanne Shipley spoke of a goal to establish four-year degree programs in education, business administration and nursing for part-time, nontraditional students in Martinsburg, W.Va., by the fall of 2013. Now, because of misfortunes befalling Mountain State University, Shepherd could open a Martinsburg satellite campus as early as January. Shepherd officials are taking a hard look at buying or leasing Mountain State University's classroom and administrative facility in the converted former Tanger Outlet mall building at 214 Viking Way, Shepherd University spokeswoman Valerie Owens said this week.

Mark McCoy, chairman of the music department at Shepherd University, has been appointed dean of the School of Music at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., effective August 1, Shepherd University announced this week. McCoy completes a 16-year career at Shepherd on June 30, 2011 and leaves a legacy of bringing musical excellence to the Eastern Panhandle. A native West Virginian, McCoy is an alumnus of Shepherd University, earning his bachelor's degree from the university before moving on to the Peabody Conservatory and Texas Tech for his graduate degrees.