This week on Inside Appalachia, a Hare Krishna community in West Virginia serves vegetarian food made in three sacred kitchens. Also, an Asheville musician’s latest guitar album is a call to arms. And, we talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who is passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece.
Inspiring West Virginians: Season 4 featuring John Nash
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The fourth series of Inspiring West Virginians features one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Forbes Nash, Jr, a 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nash grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia, and the town still holds an importance for him. Now 84, John Nash is currently a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University in New Jersey.
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Listen to John Nash's visit with Jean Snedegar.
His life was the subject of the 1998 best-selling biography, A Beautiful Mind, and the 2001 Hollywood film (which won the Best Picture Oscar) of the same name. Other contributors to the Nash profile are Nash’s sister, Martha Nash Legg; Cliff Hawley, Professor of Economics at West Virginia University; Steve Shreve (a native of Greenbrier County) and DejanSlepcev, both mathematicians at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Also in this season:
Credit Jean Snedegar
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Diane Lewis, Morgantown AFM
Diane Lewis, founder and CEO of Action Facilities Management, a security and facilities company based in Morgantown. Her company, which started in 2001 with one employee (her 17-year-old son!) now employs more than 300 people in nine states. Lewis, a native of the Adamston neighborhood in Clarksburg, is currently the Small Business Person of the Year in West Virginia. Lewis also serves on the Board of Governors of West Virginia University and is a leader in the Teaming to Win events for small businesses in West Virginia.
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Diane Lewis shares her journey.
She and her husband Kenny Jackson run a non-profit organization, Members of Diversity, which helps youngsters from minority groups to develop the skills they need to find jobs. Also contributing to the profile are Lewis’ sister, Donna Jean Forge, Brad Calandrelli, Director of Facilities at the High Tech Consortium in Fairmont and James Clements, President of West Virginia University.
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Rodney Bartis, Director of the WV Nature Conservancy, stands next to a 500 year old hemlock in 2013
Rodney Bartgis, State Director of The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia and one of the region’s most respected scientists in field biology and ecology. Since he was a child in Berkeley County, Bartgis has discovered dozens of rare plant species in West Virginia, and many naturalists agree that he knows more about the natural history of West Virginia than anyone alive. To help protect the state’s amazing biodiversity, Bartgis, along with colleagues at The Nature Conservancy and others, has helped to conserve some of West Virginia’s most unique wild places – in the New River Gorge, Canaan Valley, the Smoke Hole Canyon, Cranberry Glades, Panther Knob and Pike Knob, among many others.
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Rodney Bartgis gives a tour of wild Pendleton County.
Other contributors to his profile include Bartgis’ father, Bob Bartgis; Elizabeth Byers, plant ecologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, and the team of men who have been hiking the Mountain State with Bartgis for more than 35 years.
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Inspiring West Virginian, bio-engineer Linda Powers
Linda Powers, a bio-engineer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, builds instruments that use light to look for life in extreme environments – from microbes in hospital operating rooms, to microbes in remote deserts to life on Mars. She is considered the top person in the world in this field, with many of her projects funded by the Department of Defense and NASA. She is the Thomas R Brown Distinguished Professor of Bio-Engineering at the University of Arizona, and is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Powers, a native of Beckley, is a former winner of the West Virginia State Science Fair and the national Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now funded by Intel) sometimes referred to as “the nation’s oldest and most prestigious” science competition. Powers placed among the top five science students in the nation.
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Linda Powers describes the work in her lab.
Other contributors to her profile include colleague and bio-engineer Walter Ellis; scientist and engineer Lois Wardell, and former Woodrow Wilson High School classmate, Kathy Smith Simmons.
Inspiring West Virginians,the West Virginia Public Radio series which profiles leading scientists, engineers and business people from the Mountain State, is produced and presented by Jean Snedegar, an independent producer based in Elkins. Suzanne Higgins is the Senior Producer for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
West Virginia Week looks at the start of the 2025 West Virginia legislative session -- beginning with Gov. Patrick Morrisey's State of the State address.
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia took 10 years to complete. Author Denali Sai Nalamalapu was part of the protests to stop the pipeline. They have a new book, called HOLLER: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance. It’s written and drawn in comics form and profiles six activists who fought the pipeline. Mason Adams spoke with Nalamalapu.
In West Virginia, homeownership is a paradox. While the state boasts the nation’s highest homeownership rate, low incomes mean many homes are aging and in disrepair. In one county, 67% of houses are over 80 years old. Across Appalachia by one measure, there are 500,000 people living in substandard conditions. This is the hidden crisis at the heart of Appalachia's housing landscape.