Justice appoints ‘great friend’ Jeff Campbell to Greenbrier County House seat

Gov. Jim Justice announced the appointment of former delegate Jeff Campbell — “a great friend” of his, the governor said — to the West Virginia House of Delegates on Wednesday. Campbell will fill the seat left vacant by former Del. Mike Honaker, R-Greenbrier.

Honaker — who Justice called a “good friend” — left the House last month when he accepted an appointment from Justice to serve as the Inspector General for the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security.

It’s the second time Justice has appointed Campbell to the House, the first being in 2017 — when both Justice and Campbell were registered as democrats — to fill the vacant seat previously held by Democratic delegate Stephen Baldwin. Baldwin left the House then to take an appointment in the state Senate, where he served until 2022 when he lost his election to Senator Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier.

As a democrat, Campbell was elected to the House in 2018 but lost his 2020 bid for reelection. Sometime after that election, he became a member of the Republican Party.

Campbell is a Greenbrier County school teacher, according to a 2018 candidate profile from the Register-Herald. For more than 30 years, he has worked in sports radio broadcasting, serving as the voice of Greenbrier East High School, where Justice has coached girls’ basketball — and from 2011-2017 boys’ basketball — for about 20 years.