SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — The director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education says Senator Byrd made good on his promise to become a billion dollar industry for the mountain state.
Ray Smock announced on MetroNews Affiliate WEPM Monday that nearly six years after Byrd’s death, they are still counting the total appropriations the late U.S. Senator brought into the state.
“It’s $10 billion and growing,” Smock said.
Byrd promised to bring in $1 billion dollars when he became chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1989. Smock said that total is from the time Byrd entered the Senate until his death in 2010.
“Roads, infrastructure, institutions, bringing parts of the federal government to West Virginia,” Smock said.
A name change for the Byrd Center was announced last week.
Smock said they will be launching a series of lectures and other events, including a traveling exhibit that will move across the state.
That exhibit will begin in Shepherdstown in April and end in Charleston in Nov. 2017, which is Byrd’s centennial.