This week on Inside Appalachia, Alleghany and Covington high schools were rivals for decades. But now, they’ve merged. This week, we head to a home football game and learn how it’s going. Also, the daughter of a legendary guitar maker didn’t set out to take up her father’s craft — but she’s found it irresistible. And, we take a trip to the mushroom capital of the U.S.
Alleghany and Covington high schools were rivals for decades. But now, they’ve merged. This week, we head to a home football game and learn how it’s going.
Also, the daughter of a legendary guitar maker didn’t set out to take up her father’s craft — but she’s found it irresistible.
And, we take a trip to the mushroom capital of the U.S.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
A consolidated school might be different, but student spirit remains the same.
Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
There’s nothing hotter than a high school sports rivalry. Host Mason Adams grew up in Alleghany County, Virginia and went to Alleghany High School. His school’s biggest football rival was the Covington Cougars, on the other side of the county.
The two schools consolidated this past year. Adams made a trip home to visit the new school during its very first homecoming to see what has changed and what hasn’t.
A New Generation Of Henderson Guitars
Jayne Henderson builds her own future as a guitar and ukulele maker.
Credit: Janie Witte
Wayne Henderson has been making guitars since he was a teenager. The guitars he makes are prized by players who are willing to wait up to a decade to get their hands on one.
His daughter, Elizabeth Jayne Henderson, never intended to follow in her father’s footsteps. She went to law school, but now Jayne is carrying on the family tradition in her own way.
Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef had this story.
Pennsylvania’s Mushroom Empire
Shiitake mushroom.
Credit: Keith Weller/United States Department of Agriculture
People have hunted wild mushrooms for generations — but did you know that Pennsylvania is the biggest producer of mushrooms in the U.S.?
WVIA’s Kat Bolus brought us this story about Pennsylvania’s mushroom farms and foraging clubs.
The Migration Of Frijoles Charros
A bowl of frijoles charros sits to the right of a bowl of refried beans. While refried beans are a standard side dish in most Mexican restaurants in Southern Ohio, frijoles charros often accompany the main meal at restaurants in northern Mexico and along the US-Mexico border.
Credit: Nicole Musgrave/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A bowl of brothy pinto beans is comfort food for lots of folks here in Appalachia. There’s a similar tradition in rural Mexico — frijoles charros — or charro beans. Now, the dish has made its way north to the former coal town of Wellston, in southeast Ohio.
Folkways Reporter Nicole Musgrave has the story.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Joe Dobbs and the 1937 Flood, Mary Hott, The Sycomores, Anna and Elizabeth, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, John Blissard, and the Alleghany High School marching band.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
This week, punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit. We hop a tiny train to discover the miniature wonders of a West Virginia model railroad. Then, we journey to eastern Kentucky, where they’re reclaiming their bootlegging heritage – along a new moonshine trail.
This week, punk music photographer Chelse Warren takes us into the pit.
We hop a tiny train to discover the miniature wonders of a West Virginia model railroad.
Then, we journey to eastern Kentucky, where they’re reclaiming their bootlegging heritage – along a new moonshine trail.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Over the summer, Mason Adams visited a two-day DIY music festival called The Floor is Gone.
In the middle of it all was photographer Chelse Warren, who goes by Openhead Takes Photos online.
Mason reached out to talk music and more.
Tiny Train Trouble
The Kanawha Valley Railroad Association got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in 1998. The county commission gave them some money to build a brick-and-mortar clubhouse. Members decided to use the new space to build one big, permanent model train layout.
Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Along with trees and candy canes, trains have become a symbol of the holiday season. Think: the Polar Express, or Santa-themed excursions on local railroads. And generations of people grew up hoping to find electric train sets under the tree on Christmas Day.
These days, model train sets are enjoyed by grownup collectors and hobbyists.
Folkways Reporter Zack Harold visited a model train club in West Virginia and brings us the story.
Beyond Bourbon In The Bluegrass State
Kentucky is known for its bourbon. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only liquor with a history in the state.
A group of distillers wants to attract more visitors to eastern Kentucky by focusing on its historic ties to moonshine.
Shepherd Snyder has the story.
Remembering Travis Stimeling
Travis Stimeling, a musicology professor and the director of the Bluegrass and Old-Time Bands at West Virginia University (WVU), died on Nov. 15. They were 44.
Stimeling was a big figure in Appalachian academia, and played an important role in establishing the Appalachian Studies and Appalachian Music programs at WVU. Stimeling spoke with Inside Appalachia several times.
In 2021, Caitlin Tan interviewed Stimeling about a book they edited called, “The Opioid Epidemic and U.S. Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction.”
In memory of Stimeling, we replayed that interview.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Collective Action, Dimension Six, Gaol, Sultry, Sean Watkins, Hurlbut-Kaukonen, Tyler Childers, Steve Earle and Gerry Milnes.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
Politically, Appalachia encompasses 423 counties across 13 states — and West Virginia’s the only state entirely inside the region. That leaves so much room for geographic and cultural variation, as well as many different views on what Appalachia really is. For Inside Appalachia, we turned our entire episode over to the question, “What is Appalachia?”
This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021.
Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust Belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
Politically, Appalachia encompasses 423 counties across 13 states — and West Virginia’s the only state entirely inside the region.
That leaves so much room for geographic and cultural variation, as well as many different views on what Appalachia really is.
For Inside Appalachia, we turned our entire episode over to the question, “What is Appalachia?” With stories from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, we asked people across our region whether they consider themselves to be Appalachian.
A 1996 map that shows the southern part of Appalachia, as defined by John Alexander Williams.
Mississippi
Bob Owens — locally known as ‘Pop Owens,’ stands in front of his watermelon stand outside New Houlka, Mississippi. Pop says he was aware that Mississippi is part of Appalachia, but that no one in the state would consider themselves Appalachian.
Credit: Caitlin Tan/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Bob Owens is a watermelon farmer outside New Houlka, in the northeastern part of Mississippi. Owens said he was aware that Mississippi is part of Appalachia, but that no one in the state would consider themselves Appalachian. “I consider myself the worst redneck you’ve ever seen,” Owens said. “I live in the area of the Appalachian mountain range — not part of it, but close to it. So I guess you call me a redneck Appalachian.” This is the general consensus among the people in Mississippi who Inside Appalachia spoke to.
Geographically, the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range are located in northern Mississippi. The state’s tallest point is Woodall Mountain, 806 feet in elevation. For reference, the highest point in North Carolina, Mount Mitchell, is more than 6,600 feet in elevation, eight times higher than Woodall Mountain.
Co-host Caitlin Tan spoke with Texas State University history professor Justin Randolph, who wrote an essay for “Southern Cultures” called “The Making of Appalachian Mississippi.” Randolph argues in his essay that Mississippi became part of Appalachia for political and racial reasons, as well as economic advantages the designation brought to the 24 counties in Mississippi that were included in the ARC’s boundaries.
Shenandoah Valley
In the 1960s, while some localities were clamoring to get into Appalachia, on the eastern edge of the region, some lawmakers fought to keep their counties outside the boundaries, including politicians in Roanoke, Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.
Appalachian Studies associate professor Emily Satterwhite said explaining to her students why some counties in Virginia are included in Appalachia, but others aren’t, is confusing. “The students in front of me are wondering why they’re not included,” White said.
Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania skyline.
Courtesy
Appalachia’s largest city is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When we asked people from that city to tell us if they consider it a part of Appalachia, about half said no. “I definitely do not feel that I am Appalachian culturally,” said Mark Jovanovich, who grew up just outside Pittsburgh’s city limits in the Woodland Hills area. “Personally, I would consider the city of Pittsburgh is sort of like a mini New York City. I guess we’d probably be lumped in as like a Rust Belt city, which makes enough sense, but definitely not Appalachian culturally.”
An editor advised him to change the title of his book to a phrase that he said is sometimes used to refer to Pittsburgh derisively. “I couldn’t figure out why that should be a putdown, because Paris is nice. And Appalachia is a beautiful part of the world. And if we were called the Paris of the Rockies, we wouldn’t run from that. So why would we run from this? Why don’t we embrace it? So that became the title of my book.”
He said that geographically, Pittsburgh is clearly in the Appalachian Mountains. “I mean, this is one mountain range that stretches from Georgia to Maine. And the idea that it belongs only to the southern part of the mountain range defies logic to me,” O’Neill said.
What Do You Think?
How about you? Do you call yourself an Appalachian? Why or why not? Send an email to InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by John Wyatt, John R Miller, Alan Cathead Johnston, and Dinosaur Burps. Roxy Todd originally produced this episode. Bill Lynch is our current producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
Appalachian filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s new “King Coal” blends documentary and imaginative storytelling in a way that pulls viewers into a compelling portrait of Appalachia’s coal communities.
This conversation originally aired in the May 28, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Appalachian filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s new “King Coal” blends documentary and imaginative storytelling in a way that pulls viewers into a compelling portrait of Appalachia’s coal communities.
The film includes scenes of coal mining operations and culture in surrounding mountain towns, as it follows two girls who are dancers and dreamers through the landscapes of coal.
“King Coal” was shown at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It was also screened at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. That’s where Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams spoke with Sheldon, co-producer Molly Born, and breath artist Shodekeh Talifero.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Adams: This film showed an Appalachia that I’m very familiar with; it showed the Appalachia that I know. But it also showed an Appalachia I don’t know. So my first question is, how did you get that incredible coal mining footage?
Sheldon: That was when I was making the project “Hollow” in 2012, in McDowell County. I had been trying to get access to a mine over and over and over, and just kept getting shut down. Nobody wanted me to film. That mine actually was one that I think my brother and my dad both worked at separate times, and so they were able to help me build the trust there. I was allowed to witness one shift.
Basically, we go into the mine, we see Bobby Lee, who’s the miner, operating a continuous miner, which is a massive piece of machinery that he stands away from with a remote control, and controls all that while he’s looking over his back making sure the coal is going back in the right direction and that he’s not pinning someone against the wall with that type of machinery. Basically, it’s just a really violent scene where the machine is just crunching into this earth and just going at it. And I don’t think most people know what that looks like. But it’s loud, it’s dusty, it’s wet, because they’re spraying so much water to keep the dust down. It’s a really intense job. And it shows you how on-edge miners can get.
So with that, we get out of the mine, and then we go into the garden where I tell a story, which is very true, that you just don’t sneak up behind them, because they’ve lived a life where they have been scared of getting pinned by rock or rock falling on them or whatever. It’s one of my favorite sequences, because it shows both this very aggressive experience that people have, and then this gentleness that they occupy when they’re above ground just as human beings tending their gardens. I think that juxtaposition is true for a lot of people that do that work.
Adams: Can you all talk a little bit about how you kind of initially conceived this through these scenes, and how it came together to make what we saw on the screen last night?
Born: We were both interested in these expressions of coal-related culture — these objects, these places. I remember being aware of these for years. My best friend in high school had a “coal miner’s daughter“ bumper sticker on her car. We’ve always seen these emblems and these expressions of pride. But then we’ve also seen these events where people come together in the community to talk about this place that we don’t often see.
I have never been in a coal mine, except for the exhibition coal mine where we filmed and the one in Lynch, Kentucky, as well. This is a world that many of us only know peripherally or we don’t know at all. And I think the events get at that complexity as well. Like, the scene in the classroom where Fred Powers is talking about his experience underground. There’s that moment where he’s talking about the methane explosion. There’s some levity in the way that he is talking about it. But it’s also really tragic. And then later in that scene, as a kid asked him, “Do you miss being a coal miner?” And he says, “Yes, I do.” And he says it without missing a beat. And that captures that complexity.
Fred Powers talks to kids at White Hall Elementary about his time in the mines. Courtesy
I think the film started as us capturing these real life moments. When COVID hit in 2020, like many film teams, and like everyone else, we stopped working for a bit. So many of the coal events that we filmed before the pandemic did not come back, so that was an interesting, and really, really special thing that we captured a lot of these moments as a living archive. But you [talking to Sheldon] were really interested in bringing in your family’s experience. It shifted into what has been described as an essay film or an experimental film, a hybrid documentary. I think it needed to become that to say what we needed to say.
Sheldon: We were filming these coal scenes. We went to classrooms to film kids doing these things with coal. We filmed the coal dust run, where they throw fake coal dust on people. The football team touching this coal as they come out of the locker room, hands on the coal over and over and over, the dedication to miners that night. It was all really exciting to film because it was real, and it was so heartfelt. It was also all very ironic, and we really felt like it was lacking the context of understanding the psychology. Psychology is impossible to show, so we had to think of other ways — cinematic techniques, dreamscapes, other things — to take us into that realm that would make this more universal. Figuring out the art form that would do that was important.
The Mingo Central Miners’ football team touch a piece of coal as they head out on the field. Courtesy
Adams: We’ve talked about the documentary side, but there are these other scenes showing the beauty of the region. People called it the “dreamy part” or “the part with the girls.” Can you tell us what folks are talking about when they say that?
Sheldon: There’s cultural scenes that are real scenes, we did not orchestrate any of them. And then there’s two girls that we cast at local dance studios, Molly found them in her kid in Charleston. Once we realized we needed that sort of ushering the audience into this psyche, we wanted it to be through the viewpoint of children. Children allow us entry into an old story in a new way with humor and irony, and all these things. This new energy, new life thinking about the future. And so we put Lanie and Gabby in scenes that were real. The most important thing was that the girls then became a catalyst for thinking about the future. We’re not, you know, recommending a replacement economy if we do this and do this. It’s more of just getting people to remember that imagination and thinking about the future with creativity and imagination is kind of our only hope.
Lanie Marsh in the Cranberry Backcountry filming for “King Coal.” Courtesy
Adams: There’s a line about “millions of tons of coal, leave these hills, we stay here.” And it seems like this film is in a lot of ways about what happens to the people who have been part of this culture as the actual industry fades. Does that seem like an accurate read?
Sheldon: Yeah. I think the film is also trying to make the point that oftentimes, the things we value, the things that have monetary value, aren’t the most valuable things locally to where they’re produced. And so the coal that’s left and left and left and left our state of West Virginia struggles to keep schools open and roads paved. The people at the center of it, their resilience and their dignity has always been what’s interesting to both of us, and their choice to stay and how hard or difficult that’s been. Usually they’re depicted as not having choice.
We wanted to show people as actually making a choice to stay. The line of, “millions of tons of coal leaves these hills, we stay here” — it was a defiant line. But it’s a bittersweet line, because it’s followed up with the falling of the Mingo Oak, which is the place we went to have sanctuary on Sunday. The Mingo Oak was the world’s largest white oak, and it suffocated from a coal burning waste pile nearby. For me, anytime the film started to feel romantic or happy, I’ll pull it back to some reality because I do think that’s truer to our lives. They have been bittersweet.
Adams: The film not only looks stunning, but it’s amazing to listen to as well. How did you start working with Shodekeh?
Sheldon: The sound team is made of all stars, including Shodekeh. The first person to mention on the sound team is Billy Wirasnik, who recorded all those lush sounds you hear. And then last year, at Big Ears in Knoxville, Shodekeh came to perform. He is beyond a breath artist. He does all kinds of vocal percussion and beatboxing. I just almost fell off my seat, because I didn’t even know what he was doing with his mouth to make these sounds that sounded like nature and life and death and all these things, all the themes of the film. I just was blown away. I walked right up to him after his thing and got his card. I followed up with him not really knowing what we needed to do. We had conversations and he came to West Virginia. We did a whole recording. I didn’t know what he did was even a thing. But when I heard it, I knew the film couldn’t live without it.
Adams: So when Elaine laid out the film to you, what did you think?
Talifero: Piggybacking off what you [Sheldon] said about “I didn’t know that what he does is a thing,” I’m trying to figure out how this can be a thing or is it a thing. I had just completed working a commission at the National Aquarium, and I approached that specifically through the lens of being a breath artist and not a beatboxer. So it [“King Coal”] was the next perfect project for me.
Adams: I know you recorded in the Monongahela National Forest. What was that like?
Talifero: The part of Monongahela National Forest that we are in doesn’t look real. It looks like a movie set. Sonically, the space was very still that day. I was just trying to call out to the space and call out to the vision. Elaine said, ‘Okay, so you’re the mountains, you’re the coal, you’re the earth” — all these things that go way beyond just me, little old me.
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“King Coal” is screening in select cities around the country. Upcoming screenings include Aug. 19, Appalachian Film Festival (Huntington, WV); and Sept. 29, Mtn Craft Film Festival (Clarksburg, WV).
The filmmakers expect a wider release this summer.
