The former Wellsburg Middle School has new owners with the Brooke County school board’s acceptance of a $225,000 bid for the three-story building and surrounding property.

The bid was submitted by Ed and Beth Hinebaugh, a Wheeling couple who said their intention is to use the property for a business involving children. The pair owns Noah’s Ark Childcare and the Fulton Fun Factory, which offers indoor bounce houses and other activities for youth and rental space for parties, as well as 50 single-family homes in the Wheeling area.

A graduate of Brooke High School, Beth Cawthon Hinebaugh said she had attended the former middle school and her father was a student there when it was a high school.

Plans had called for the school to be closed when its student body was merged with students of F

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