By Abby Ayes
For The Parthenon
The Choice to Stay
In West Virginia, the question isn’t just why people leave, it’s why some never do. For every student packing up their apartment in Huntington or Morgantown with plans to start somewhere new, there’s someone else choosing to stay, not because they have to, but because they want to. And that choice, in a state so often defined by outmigration, says just as much about West Virginia as the decision to leave.
That decision is rarely simple. It’s shaped by family, by opportunity, by personal goals and sometimes, by a feeling that’s harder to explain. In a place where leaving is often framed as success, staying can feel like something that needs justification, but for many West Virginians, it doesn’t. It’s just home.
Brian Crist, who grew up in Pratt, has seen enough of the world to know what’s out there. He’s traveled, stayed in other places long enough to get a feel for them, but never felt the pull to call them home. For him, West Virginia isn’t something to grow out of. It’s something you grow into.
“I’ve gone to so many different places,” Crist said. “I’ve just never lived out of those places. I’ve stayed long enough to know that West Virginia is really beautiful.”
For Crist, that beauty isn’t just in the landscape, it’s in the pace of life, the people and the familiarity that comes with it. It’s something that becomes clearer the more time you spend away from it.
Roots and Belonging
His version of growing up sounds familiar to a lot of people here. Weekends weren’t scheduled, they just happened. Ten or fifteen cousins at a time, running through creeks, fishing, disappearing into the woods until the sun started to go down. It wasn’t flashy, but it was full.
Those kinds of memories don’t just fade. They shape how people see the world and where they see themselves fitting into it. For many, they become a reason to come back or a reason to never leave in the first place.
Crist said no matter where he’s been, nothing quite compares to crossing back into the state, especially driving through the mountains near Beckley.
“It just feels good,” he said. “It feels like you’re back where you belong.”
That word, “belong,” comes up a lot in conversations like this. It’s not something you can measure the way you measure job growth or salaries, but it carries weight. In West Virginia, belonging often looks like familiarity. It’s running into someone you know at the grocery store or someone who knows your family without needing an introduction. It’s a sense that your life is connected to something bigger than just yourself, something that’s been there long before you and will be there after.
Melanie Kearns understands that feeling well. She grew up in Wayne County in a large family, surrounded by people who knew her long before she had the chance to introduce herself.
“You’re known,” Kearns said. “You know the people you went to school with, and you know them generationally.”
That kind of connection can be hard to find somewhere new and even harder to recreate.
Opportunity and Perception
For Kearns, staying wasn’t a backup plan, it was always part of the picture. She went to Marshall University, built a career in nursing and stayed close to the same community that shaped her.
“Staying local and staying close to my family meant something to me,” Kearns said.
That decision came with opportunity, too. She said the healthcare field provided stability but also room to grow without leaving the state behind. Over time, those opportunities only expanded, showing that staying doesn’t have to mean standing still.
“As I’ve stayed in this state and developed in my career, more opportunities presented themselves,” Kearns said.
Still, both Crist and Kearns are aware of how West Virginia is perceived from the outside. The stereotypes about coal, education and what kind of people live here tend to follow the state, even for those who have never visited. Those assumptions can shape how others view the decision to stay, often unfairly.
But Kearns said something shifts when people actually experience it.
She remembers sitting at a small breakfast spot in Charleston with a colleague from out of state who assumed everyone she spoke to were friends.
“I was like, ‘No, I don’t know them,’” Kearns said. “That’s just kind of West Virginia.”
That everyday kindness, the ease of conversation and the willingness to connect with strangers are things that don’t always show up in statistics or reports, but they’re part of what makes the state feel different and, for many, better.
The push and pull
Crist pushes back on the idea that staying means settling. He said people underestimate what’s possible here, especially in cities like Huntington and Charleston, where growth and opportunity are more visible than outsiders might expect.
“I think there’s opportunity everywhere for anybody … You have to sell yourself,” Crist said.
He’s also watched people leave chasing something better, only to come back years later, often with a new perspective on what they left behind.
“If the grass was really greener on the other side, why did they come back,” he asked.
That question doesn’t come with a single answer. For some, leaving is necessary. It’s about finding careers that don’t exist locally or experiencing life outside of what’s familiar. For others, it’s about proving something to themselves, and for many students, it’s simply the next step after graduation.
But the possibility of coming back is always there, and for some, it becomes part of the plan. Others never feel the need to leave at all.
That push and pull has always been part of West Virginia’s story, a balance between those who go and those who stay, but the people who stay are just as important to that story. They’re the ones building lives in the same towns they grew up in, investing in their communities and choosing connection over distance.
For Crist, it’s simple.
“It’s a great state,” he said. “I’ve always loved it.”
And for many West Virginians, that love, quiet and steady, is reason enough to stay.
Read more from The Parthenon, here.