MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Due to threats over the last several days, Morgantown High School has cancelled all extracurricular activities for tonight, including their road football game with South Charleston. Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell said also postponed is the Clay Battelle trip to Wetzel County to play the Valley High School football team.
Campbell said those decisions and the decision to place Morgantown High School on a “working lockdown” Friday are due to a social media threat this week that mentioned several schools. Campbell is referring to a list threatening 46 schools that teachers, students, and faculty began reporting this week.
“At this point, the Department of Homeland Security has not identified the source of that list, and they’re not in a position to tell us it is not a credible threat,” Campbell said.
Campbell said they would take a chance with the safety of staff, athletes, and fans. Clay-Battelle plans to make their contest up with Valley High School on Monday, September 16. No date has been set for a Morgantown-South Charleston make-up.
“There were multiple schools on that list, including two of the schools we were supposed to play away in football this evening,” Campbell said. “One of those—South Charleston, where Morgantown was supposed to, and Valley in Wetzel County, where Clay-Battelle was supposed to go.”
Campbell said for the last two days his task list has been dominated by these threats. He said the threats are terrible distractions that take away from learning and the benefits of competition.
“It doesn’t make any sense for us to hold any extracurricular activities; either the threat in the list just said Friday, and we don’t want to open ourselves up,” Campbell said.
At this point, they are cooperating with law enforcement and hope to find those responsible. Campbell said if those responsible are from the Monongalia County area, he promised to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.
“We’re really relying on our law enforcement folks as far as determining where the threats are coming from and them being able to apprehend these folks,” Campbell said.
The Clay-Battelle game with Valley High School will be played Monday.
The Morgantown, South Charleston game will be played at noon Saturday.