newspaper. No one else in West Virginia was educating those students until the foundation in 1891 of the West Virginia Colored Institute, today West Virginia State University, and in 1895 of the Bluefield Colored Institute, today Bluefield State College. (They are in 2021 the universities in West Virginia with the lowest Black enrollment.) They certainly were not welcome at the segregated state normal school, Shepherd College, founded in 1871 in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia. In 1938 Storer began offering a curriculum that would lead to a four-year college degree. Storer College, Jefferson County, and West Virginia In 1867, that the charter of Storer should say "without distinction of race or color" was "fiercely debated" in the Legislature, and approval of the charter was delayed until March 1868. In 1881 the Legislature directed that the state finance the education of 17 prospective "colored" teachers, this being the number, relative to West Virginia's population, that corresponds to the ratio of white prospective teachers supported, to the white population. Finances of the college The school charged only minimal tuition, $3 per quarter, or $20 for five years. Rooms were only $3 per quarter, so the students' main expense was for their board, estimated at $2–$3 per week. By 1881, the school had already passed through "severe financial embarrassments". Support of the College was the largest single endeavor of the Free Baptists, to which they were "thoroughly committed". In 1867, in addition to chartering it, the West Virginia Legislature appropriated $10,000 (). This was the first appropriation in the state for the education of Negroes above the elementary level. From 1882 to 1892, Storer received $630 from the State of West Virginia, to provide "industrial-type training for Negroes". In 1903, President McDonald referred to the state's "small biennial appropriation" for the same purpose. In 1911–1912, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, which "as a result of doctrinal conflicts" absorbed the Free Baptists in 1911, contributed $1,350 to salaries, and in 1912–1913 was budgeted to contribute $2,750, and for 1913–1914 and 1914–1915, $3,000 each year. In addition, Storer was to receive $1,785 from the sale of Manning Bible School (Cairo, Illinois) property, In 1926, the Legislature appropriated $6,000, which did not even cover half the faculty and administrative salaries. The Free Will Baptist–Home Mission Society, which quashed a fundraising drive, saying they were overextended, contributed $3,000. The Women's Baptist Home Mission Society contributed $3,000, to