20 years ago (tomorrow, actually), I posted a “Local Notes” story that tied together brief items on three local things. You can read it HERE.

It wasn’t a spectacular post, but revisiting it gives me an opportunity to address one of the curious things about PopCult.

Due to our origins as part of The Charleston Gazette, the local scene has always been a huge part of this blog. Being a blog about pop culture means that my reach exceeds my local grasp, and as the years have gone by I have written more and more about things that are not necessarily focused on Central West Virginia. I must be doing something right, because last year, while I wasn’t really paying attention, readership of PopCult more than doubled, and I’m confident that we actually have more daily readers than The Charleston Gazette-Mail does now.

Even though my local interest posts only attract a fraction of the readers of my book, toy, movie or cereal reviews or travel photo essays and videos, I keep doing them because it is a way to support the local scene, but it also lets me do something easier than writing a detailed review every day of the week. The weekly STUFF TO DO post, where I run a boilerplate and graphics, is sort of my half-day off, because it takes so little effort.

That’s why PopCult is regarded as a “local blog that isn’t always about local stuff,” as another esteemed blogger once said.

But back to that original post from January 16, 2006, in it I plugged three local things, and sadly two of them appear to be gone for good.

The first item promoted a “Briefs and Shorts” program put on by Kanawha Players. KP was designated as the official theater company of West Virginia for much of their existence, but sadly, it appears that existence has come to an end. The last event they actually held was a 100th anniversary performance of Overtones, the very first show they produced on November 3, 1922. The anniversary show was held November 26, 2022 at the Kanawha County Public Library.

A planned performance of The Vagina Monologues in early 2023 was cancelled. No events have been announced since. Their domain name has expired. The Facebook page has only had a dozen posts in the ensuing three years, none of them saying anything about them still being an ongoing concern.

I suppose that it’s possible that KP might be revived, but for the time being, we have to consider them defunct.

And that is a sad end for a theater company that has been responsible for some of the greatest moments in local theater for a hundred years.

The second item in that post was a plug for The  West Virginia International Auto Show, which happened the weekend of that post.

It wasn’t until I started updating this post that I realized that the WVIAS is apparently also no more than a memory. The last one was held in 2024. Last year’s show was cancelled unexpectedly, and with nothing scheduled for this year, it appears this event is apparently also defunct. The domain name has also expired. Nothing has been announced since last year’s cancellation and the fact that I either forgot that it was cancelled or never noticed in the first place is a clue that, just maybe, not enough people cared about buying new cars to make the event worthwhile.

I know personally, I don’t find much of anything exciting about new cars. Most of them look alike and have touchscreens for controls.  Add in the fact that new cars cost as much as a house these days, and I think we can figure out why this show ended.

On a happier note, the third item in that post was a plug for Rick Lee’s Blog. Rick’s Blog is still up so you can read it and see Rick’s amazing photography….but he has not updated it since 2012. Rick was one of the major proponents of most local blogs, and was very encouraging to me, and several other local blog-makers.  But he has moved on to other things.

And who can blame him? I mean, nobody reads blogs anymore. You’d have to be crazy to still be blogging in 2026.

Happily, Rick is still an active photographer, and you can see his work at his website, or actually all over the place because his work is in such demand.

And, making things even happier, since I’m writing about Rick here,  I don’t think he’ll mind if I swipe one of his images for the feature image today, since the original entry doesn’t have any graphics for me to mine for today’s post. At least I hope he doesn’t mind.

So credit for the feature image at the top of this post goes to Rick. the image (sans my 20 year logo) is  swiped from Rick’s website.  Go hire him if you need some photos taken. The man has an amazing eye and his compositional skills are a superpower.

And that is an updated look at what was in this blog (almost) exactly 20 years ago, today.