CVB recognizes Tourism Person of the Year at 2025 Tourism Summit

It has been quite a year for Tracey Valach. First, she has run a very successful and innovative educational program “Natures Mountain Classroom” in the Pocahontas County Schools, which in April was selected as one of eight regional winners of the Educational Alliance’s West Virginia School-Business Partnership of the Year award. There had been 75 school programs from 75 school districts entered for that award. Then, in May, the program, which prides itself as an outdoor based educational program for all grades, was chosen among those 8 Regional winners, as the overall state winning school program.

Now, on May, 22^nd, at the 2025 Pocahontas County Tourism Summit, Chelsea Faulknier of the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) announced Valach has been selected as the Tourism Person of the Year.

The Tourism Summit, which was held at the Pocahontas County Opera House in Marlinton, kicked off with CVB Executive Director Faulknier providing updates on tourism in the county. She said the CVB has been concentrating on developing tourism partnerships and initiatives, including an aggressive nation-wide advertising campaign. In 2023, she said, tourists brought 148 million dollars into the county. She said tourism also accounts for 1,100 tourism related local jobs in the county.

Faulknier explained that the county is uniquely situated to take advantage of the tough nationwide economy which has caused tourists to forego expensive international travel. Instead, many are seeking authentic, off the beaten path vacation sites, especially ones that include outdoor activities in rustic locations, and personal exposure to our unique Appalachian culture.

Faulknier also announced that Tammy Shoemaker, who welcomes tourists to the Cass Scenic railroad on behalf of the CVB, has received the Hospitality Honor Award for her 25 years of outstanding hospitality.

Makinsey Poeppel, the CVB’s Social Media Manager, and Alexa Nagy, the Account Executive of the CVB’s advertising firm, Digital Relativity talked about Pocahontas County’s increasing tourism presence on social media. She said people from nearby major cities, from New York to Washington DC are visiting our county’s tourism social media and websites more frequently.

They also talked about their advertising campaigns – which include spring, summer, fall and winter campaigns – and are about seasonal activities including hiking, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, biking, motorcycling, fall foliage viewing, skiing, and snowboarding. They said the term “the rest” is used in all these campaigns with a double meaning. For example, in a mountain biking add, it might end with “you may come for the biking, but discover the rest” That theme is carried over to all the different advertising campaign activities.

Charles Evans of the Snowshoe Highlands Area Recreational Collaborative (SHARC) talked about how they are focusing on biking and hiking trail development and maintenance -especially the new Monday Lick Trails. He mentioned the growing possibility that this area might become the 7^th International Mountain Biking Association’s Gold Riding Center in the world. He said SHARC is also involved in community education, and back-country emergency rescue and medical response.

Davis Landis talked about the newest and fastest growing type of bike riding – gravel bike packing. He said that differs from street riding, rail trail riding and single-track mountain biking. Gravel riding is more challenging than street or rail trail riding, he said, but less challenging than mountain bike single-track riding. Landis said they are laying out gravel, or at least very sparsely traveled rural roads, to create a gravel bike trail which will connect all of the Mon Forest Towns.   Gravel bikers carry their camping packs and food with them, but may still stay over at motels sometimes.

A taco lunch was provided to the about 50 tourism and business partners who attended the event.