I am appalled to see Representative Riley Moore and Senator Shelly Moore Capito grinning with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the ribbon cutting for another building for Homeland Security in Harpers Ferry. I would rather see both of them and Senator Jim Justice working on a hot day with their constituents to relieve pressures on West Virginia citizens — helping at local food banks, comforting folks in the emergency room, fighting for justice for refugees and immigrants, joining youth leaders in summer enrichment programs, cleaning up after floods and meeting with constituents in their offices.

West Virginia’s elected leadership, regardless of party, always prided itself at staying in close contact with the home folks. From U.S. Senator to state delegate, we have a history of legislators who are in touch with the needs of their state and all their constituents.

Robert Byrd took good care of the state’s infrastructure and scanned the daily newspapers in every small hamlet and hollow for the wedding and graduation announcements of every West Virginian, all of whom got a personal note of congratulations from the senator.

While Byrd handled the roads and bridge building back home, Jennings Randolph represented the Mountain State masterfully on national issues in the Senate, becoming a power far beyond what any small, mostly rural state like West Virginia could expect to wield, yet he retained the common touch back home when he worked the church suppers and VFW halls, among his mountain people, with the skill of a big city ward boss.

Ken Hechler was so adept at constituent services to West Virginians and back-home fence-mending, that NBC News once dubbed him “America’s best congressman” because of his energetic representation of his district, where he returned home most every weekend for meetings, rallies and a lot of door-to-door, shoe-leather retail politics.

Even my own former state representative in Charleston, Scrabble’s own John Overington, who served in the state legislature for more than 20 years, regularly took the pulse of his Berkeley County constituency, with his regular town hall meetings, mail-in opinionpolls and surveys, public service projects throughout his district and consistent attendance at gathering spots like the Ruritan Hall in Bedington. John was always around, and always willing to listen.

So let’s call on all our elected state and federal representatives to stop hiding behind photo opps, useless junkets, tweets and anonymous staffers and be here now, for West Virginia. Talk with us, hold town hall meetings, meet us where we live, work, worship and recreate.

Politics in West Virginia has always been a matter of simply walking around. Tell them to take the country roads.

Carolyn Thomas, of Shepherdstown