Two Wetzel County Sheriff’s deputies have been promoted. In 2006 four Wetzel County deputies qualified to take the Corporal Test, and in November Deputy Mike Koontz and Deputy Roger Spragg were promoted to the rank of Corporal. Sheriff James Hoskins states, “Each deputy is an asset to the office and the community. I have an excellent staff in both the law enforcement and tax office divisions.” Both supervisors and deputies are required to have a minimum of 16 hours of continued training/education to be certified law enforcement officers in the state of West Virginia. Supervisors are also required to have an additional eight hours of related education. Some of the training the Wetzel County Sheriff’s officers received during 2006 was: prescription drug investigation, K-9 narcotics and tracking, domestic terrorism-motivated criminal activity, incident command, unclaimed property procedures, and instructor development. Due to the advanced drug interdiction training, drug arrests have increased. In 2004 there were only nine drug arrests, 26 in 2005, but in 2006 arrests had increased significantly to 45. “I believe this training has been a key factor in our ability to detect and make drug-related criminal arrests,” concluded Hoskins.