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This week, in author Willie Carver, Jr.’s new book, he reconsiders a negative childhood experience with a neighborhood girl who might have just been looking for a friend. Also, a southwestern Virginia community rang the alarm after more and more of its children were diagnosed with cancer. A local journalist is trying to unravel the cause. And, the city of Asheville has a new crusading reporter. He’s a puppet.
Ed Rabel’s attorney confirmed Rabel died on Dec. 3. He was 86 years old.Courtesy
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Ed Rabel was born in Kanawha County and grew up in St. Albans before a career in journalism took him to war zones and locations around the world.
Rabel graduated from St. Albans High School in 1957 and then Morris Harvey College in 1963. He worked in local radio before becoming news director of WCHS-TV in Charleston.
He joined CBS News in 1966. He was the last reporter to interview the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the day before he was assassinated in 1968 and volunteered to cover Vietnam in 1969. He also published the memoir “Ed Rabel Reports: Lies, Wars and Other Misadventures.”
Ed Rabel in Vietnam, from his book cover.
Courtesy
Rabel’s attorney Timothy Koontz confirmed Rabel died on Dec. 3. He was 86 years old. Koontz said Rabel was someone who didn’t suffer fools gladly, but he spoke in the highest terms of what he called Rabel’s second career — teaching.
After retiring from broadcasting as a national correspondent with NBC News, he returned home to Alum Creek. He was an adjunct professor of journalism at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communications at Washington State University.
Rabel was a regular columnist for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, occasionally stirring up local reactions, like when he declared there was no reason to watch local television news.
This week, in author Willie Carver, Jr.’s new book, he reconsiders a negative childhood experience with a neighborhood girl who might have just been looking for a friend. Also, a southwestern Virginia community rang the alarm after more and more of its children were diagnosed with cancer. A local journalist is trying to unravel the cause. And, the city of Asheville has a new crusading reporter. He’s a puppet.
Lydia Hamessley is a professor of music at Hamilton College in New York and the author of "Unlikely Angel, The Songs of Dolly Parton." She spent nearly a decade researching Dolly's music catalog. Inside Appalachia Associate Producer Abby Neff talked with Hamessley.
Dolly meant a lot to educator, author and poet Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr. from east Kentucky. Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Carver about the loss of Dolly Parton.
