There are 4 airports north, south, east and west of CRW ranging from 64nm to as little as 42nm from CRW each of which have an ILS and longer runways than CRW. However, as most of us know, each airline has a list of airports that it considers acceptable alternates (or first choice alternates) and more than anything else has to do with that airline having it's own ops office there so they can handle their own passengers and not have to rely on another airline to do it. This is probably even more so with SWA because they don't have agreements with other airlines, or at least not as many as most of the majors do. Kudos to the crew members for doing a great job of putting her on the ground safely with no injuries.
