Coalfield Development Corp. Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Localization Event Brings Together Huntington Area Creatives For Art, Culture Show

The city of Huntington — seeking to bring together the creative mojo of local businesses, artists and musicians, celebrated the city’s culture with Localization, a pop-up show.

The event was started by Lilly Dyer and Heath Holley when they were art students at Marshall University.

Dyer said Localization began as a way to create opportunities for local artists. “It’s really hard to be an artist and a creative person in Appalachia,” Dyer said. “Being able to create Localization was a way to bring creatives together just to give people more opportunities to make work.”

Localization took place at CoalField Development’s West Edge Factory. The West Edge Factory is an old repurposed ceramic factory. CoalField Development is a non-profit with the goal of revitalizing Appalachia, largely by providing job training.

To Dyer, CoalField Development’s focus on community revitalization makes the West Edge the perfect place for Localization. “They’re doing great work there with the community and with Appalachia in general,” she said, “I think with their mission and our mission, being able to just ask them if we can have the pop-up show there has just been like a perfect fit.”

The Localization film festival showcased an hour’s worth of films. Four judges were present: filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner who teaches at Marshall; WSAZ Anchor Tim Irr; Director of the Alchemy Theatre Troupe Mike Murdock; and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams. Michael Valentine won first place for his film “Hive Mentality.”

This is the first Localization since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dyer says this Localization gives a glimpse into what artists in the Huntington area have worked on over the past two years. She said it was exciting to “give that space for people to showcase what they’ve been working on while in isolation, and being able to bring everyone together in a safe space to just connect again.”

Along with the vendors, around 20 artists showed their work as part of a curated show. Leah Gore, the curator, said the theme of Rebirth was chosen to evoke a Huntington renaissance. “We wanted to highlight Appalachian grit and our resilience,” she said.

“A room full of creation, art and music. It’s super special walking through that big space,” Holley said, noting the impact of “visual noise.”

“Everywhere you look is somebody just surrounded by what they spent so much time on making. They’re makin’ money doin’ what they doin.”

Gore called the event “a beautiful visual representation of our community and our individuals that are really focusing on their craft.”

She added: “I think it’s important to, as the audience, take a look around and appreciate others’ perspectives of life, how they’re living, and new ideas. It’s a visual representation of the times we live in, whether it be abstract, or physical, or subjective. It can be telling a story.”

As a means of guaranteeing access, Localization has no cover-charge. Dyer said the freedom and fluidity of Localization is key to its success. “They’re using that money towards other artists and being able to fund their work as well. Even if you are kinda broke at the moment, you’re welcome to come in as well. That connection itself of having people in person and having that experience is very exciting to me.”

More than 400 people attended this year’s Localization, and organizers said they expect growth next year.

Coalfields To Receive $7 Million For Job, Infrastructure Growth

Federal grants of about $10 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce were awarded to four West Virginia projects Monday to help with infrastructure maintenance and economic development in the state.

Two of those projects are in the southern coalfields where the need for a more diversified workforce remains crucial.

“These projects will support business growth in West Virginia, diversify the state’s economy, and create new jobs for West Virginia residents,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

The largest award, $5.2 million, will go to the Huntington Stormwater Utility to repair the Huntington Floodwall, which officials said was structurally damaged in the 2015 and 2018 floods.

The goal for this project is to reroute sewer and storm drainage systems to protect downtown businesses, according to a press release. The project is expected to create and retain 750 jobs, the commerce department said.

The Coalfield Development Corp., a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing coalfield economies, will receive a federal grant for nearly $1.7 million. Three buildings in Matewan will be renovated to create a job-creation and training facility.

In 2019, West Virginia had the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the country. The new Matewan facility will specifically be geared toward unemployed coal miners – ideally creating 90 new jobs.

The Putnam County Public Service District and the Benedum Airport Authority also received federal grants for increasing water capacity to serve industrial needs and to renovate airport facilities, respectively.

Picturing The Future: Documenting A Coal Community’s Comeback

Can a photograph help a community grow? One photographer is shedding some light on ongoing efforts in a region looking for some new ways to sustain itself.

*The music in this story comes from Kai Engle.

Rebecca Kiger is a documentary and portrait photographer raised in West Virginia. The images she captures are often exceptionally emotionally evocative. She says it takes a lot of patience, and a little faith in both her process and her subjects.

“You have to imagine anything’s possible,” Kiger said while mousing over some of her recent images at her studio in Wheeling, West Virginia. “It allows these magical things to happen in the frame.”

Kiger went south in West Virginia this year to document new development projects in some of the communities hardest hit by the economic downturn in the coal industry. She focused on light and relationships to capture what she said was a hopeful scene.

“Photography is painting with light basically,” Kiger explained. “I’m looking for lighting and once I have that, I’m trying to figure out how and I’m going to frame. Then the question I always ask: Why are you doing this?”

Kiger says even more than she loves photography, she loves people. What motivates her to capture compelling imagery is the desire to tell their stories. To find out if she hit her mark, we asked some of her subjects.

“Captures the Moment”

“Captures the moment, doesn’t it?” Danny Ferguson asked Jacob Dyer as they first glanced through a book of Kiger’s photos. Ferguson is Dyer’s mentor at the Coalfield Development Corporation in Huntington, West Virginia. The two are looking at photos Kiger took while they were building a solar power training site in Kanawha County.

“It was a rough day that day, we was behind the gun,” Ferguson remembered.

He’s Coalfield Development’s Lincoln County crew chief. He explained that in the wake of the ailing coal industry, his organization is working to create diverse, next-generation jobs.

“I grew up in Lincoln County – that’s the whole reason I took this job,” he said. “I’d see all these kids with no possibilities, couldn’t get a job because everywhere they’d apply they’d say they want two to five years experience. Well how you gonna get the experience if no one will hire you?”

Danny Ferguson (L) and Jacob Dyer (R). . Ferguson is Dyer’s mentor at the Coalfield Development Corporation in Huntington, West Virginia.

Teaching young people from the region like Jacob Dyer how to work with and install solar panels is one way Coalfield Development is hoping to support a more diverse economy.

“I’d prefer to stay here,” Dyer said, “stay home and be around my family. And help the economy, you know?”

Ferguson pointed to a black and white portrait of Jacob’s face. “That one picture says ‘Jacob.’ I’ve worked with him for a year and I’ve learned a lot about him,” he said. “That’s amazing. That’s what I would call a ‘wall-hanger.’”

Ferguson said while working, they barely noticed Rebecca Kiger. But he does remember talking with her during lunch.

“She was trying to find out more and she took what she found out and actually said it in a picture. To me, that’s amazing.”

Hopeful Outlook

Jacob Dyer of Coalfield Development Corp.

“I probably listened to and shared more than I ever have on any other assignment,” Kiger remembered.

She says she’s grateful for work opportunities that allow her to put social media down and connect to people of all philosophies and backgrounds.

“I felt hopeful after listening to them talk about ways that they can transform communities and build communities up. I loved every minute of it. I hope the pictures I take will bring more attention to their efforts so that they can grow,” Kiger said.

The photos Kiger took were commissioned by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation – a charitable nonprofit that funds economic development projects in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The title of the latest annual report, which Kiger was hired to help illustrate: Aspire. Invest. Prosper. Transitioning to West Virginia’s New Economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BqRHZXP9IY

Coalfield Development Corp. Making Cuts into Unemployment With Saws Edge

Since acquiring the old Corbin Factory building in Westmoreland in the summer of 2014, the Coalfield Development Corporation has turned the building, now called West Edge, into a hub of training and opportunity. West Edge has developed a woodworking workshop that’s slowly cutting into the areas unemployment numbers.

Glen Wilson works in the Saws Edge shop.

Glen Wilson is a former marine corps veteran from Wayne.

“It’s a passion for me, my papa was into. I was woodworking with him when I was 14 years old, he just got me into it and when he passed away, his shop kind of disappeared and I kind of ventured off of it, but my dream’s always been to woodwork,” Wilson said.

Wilson is one of just a few students involved in a program where participants take classes at Mountwest Community and Technical College in Huntington and earn credits and money to work at a woodworking shop at West Edge, called Saws Edge.

“You’re creating something that’s been put on this earth and comes from a tree and you cut it down and make something beautiful out of it, you can see all the texture and the grain out of it,” Wilson said. “There’s wild stuff when you reveal the wood and what you can see in it, it’s just amazing.”

The workshop has been working on projects for about a year now, but is starting to slowly grow. The group takes wood from old buildings in southern West Virginia, that’s reclaimed by a deconstruction team. The team is part of the Coalfield Development Corporation as well. Coalfield Development Corporation is a community based organization working in the southern part of the state.

They started out building and deconstructing homes and now provide other training opportunities at West Edge. The goal is to create job opportunities in southern West Virginia. They’re funded through private donations and grants.

Using donated wood-cutting machines, they take reclaimed wood to make different things for sale in the local market with the hopes that local groups will purchase them. They have an agreement with West Virginia Living Magazine to make home decor pieces, they’re working with local businesses on making desks and they’ve produced pieces for Heritage Farm.

Ashley Wiles works on a project at Saws Edge.

Deacon Stone is president of Reclaim Appalachia and project director at West Edge. He said it’s a perfect opportunity to expose the students in the workshop to private businesses to help prepare them for the job market.

“It’s important for us and critical for the crew members to have a close interface with the private sector and for them to understand the kind of skills that we’re building here so we can achieve good placements for our crew members,” Stone said.

One of the businesses that has purchased wood and the services of the wood shop is a group called Ackenpucky. The name is an Appalachian slang term meaning a stew of unspecified ingredients or in the construction industry like a caulking or glue substance. They’re a design and construction group that specializes in restaurant and kitchen design.

Logan County native David Seth Cyfers and his wife run Ackenpucky, which is based in Huntington. He says they’ve used Saws Edge to cut down on their workload.

“In the last couple of years we’ve just been buying reclaimed products from them to do the work ourselves, but the design business has picked up to the point where it’s beneficial to us and beneficial to them to collaborate,” Cyfers said.

They’ve purchased reclaimed wood in the past from Saws Edge for projects like the design and construction of Backyard Pizza in Huntington and are working with the group on bar tops made from old bowling alley lanes for a new restaurant called the Peddler.

Old bowling alley lanes that Ackenpucky intends to use in the bar area at the Peddler.

Ashley Wiles, of Wayne, appreciates what the Saws Edge has done.

“It’s crazy because before I started here I never thought I could do it, but realistically I can,” Wiles said. “I can run most of this equipment, you have to be taught and you just have to do it.”

Other students at the workshop say they’re just hoping to earn more business and more opportunities for Saws Edge.

A Homestead Act for Appalachia

Appalachia, especially its coal mining region, is experiencing a revived bit of attention as shuttered mines, a rise in income inequality and longstanding poverty received flashes of concern from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

As a native son of the region with many kin and friends unemployed by the decline in coal production, it might be logical to expect I should be optimistic that things are really going to change for the better in the mountains as a result of this latest regional revival.

My experience as a journalist covering the War on Poverty and New Deal legacy institutions like the Tennessee Valley Authority, however, tempers my optimism.

With the region's largest coal companies in bankruptcy or nearly so, I have an idea for Clinton and Trump: Let's buy those bankrupted acres and let's release some of those federal holdings.

After all, Clinton’s standard Democratic formulas of job retraining and federal aid that launched the 50-year old War on Poverty and the Appalachian Regional Commission have turned out to leave the region today in the same relative position to the nation that it was a half century ago: at the bottom of the poorest.

Trump’s vague proposals to make miners “proud” again and to somehow bring the continuous mining machines and Cat bulldozers back to life make me think he understands the business of coal mining no better than he knew the business of gambling in Atlantic City that bankrupted his casinos.

There is another way.

Could mountaintop removal sites be restored and returned to local people?

Anyone who has spent time in the mountains and hollows from Middlesboro, Ky., to Beckley, W.V., understands that most of the land is owned either by coal and timber companies or the federal government with its national forests and parks. Coal companies alone own 1.3 million acres in the Cumberlands of Kentucky and even more in the Alleghenies of West Virginia. The federal government is actually the largest single landowner in Appalachia.

With the region’s largest coal companies in bankruptcy or nearly so, I have an idea for Clinton and Trump: Let’s buy those bankrupted acres and let’s release some of those federal holdings. And then we can give the people something they have not had since industrialization and coal mining started in Appalachia in the 1880’s — land. Land for farming, for gardens, for housing, for grazing cattle, horses and hogs, and for sustainable forestry.

People have become separated from the land and from hope. Despite that, mountain folks are easily those amongst us who know the most about independent living…

Let’s call this the Appalachian Homestead Act, in homage to the federal initiative that helped settle the West and build wealth in the 19th century. The Appalachian Homestead Act may be today’s single best solution to the enduring problem of mountain poverty. And it may well be the most important opportunity for a new generation looking for a place to build an economy and a community that make sense in a time of global warming and economic dysfunction.

This is the perfect policy for both candidates. Trump could probably make some real deals negotiating with these bankrupt companies. Clinton might find favor in a region that has not looked kindly on her of late, trimming some federal holdings, swapping with others, all the while turning property back to mountain communities.

Now’s the time to act. Over a dozen mountain coal producers have entered bankruptcy in just the last few years. Alpha Natural Resources, the nation’s second largest producer, is bankrupt and owns 97,000 acres of West Virginia property and thousands of acres in its home state of Virginia.

It’s a safe bet that the idled mines in the famous Elkhorn coal seams in Letcher and Pike counties in Kentucky that once fueled the furnaces of Bethlehem Steel and the Harlan County mines that did the same for U.S. Steel, International Harvester and Ford Motor Company will never see miner’s lamps again or hear their lunch buckets bang against mantrips and roof bolters.

The appalling drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide rates in the mountains are the most glaring testimony to mountaineers’ despair. People have become separated from the land and from hope.

Despite that, mountain folks are easily those amongst us who know the most about independent living, with a work ethic by coal miners and long-distance commuters that put the lie to tales of Appalachian lethargy. All over the region there are very successful entrepreneurial enterprises, ranging from food co-ops to small manufacturers to 21st century businesses employing the fastest broadband.

Among the best of these restorations, however, would be the restoration of hope. After all, the lack of money and hope is what combines to produce poverty.

What would people do with this new land? Besides producing food for themselves and nearby coastal cities, they could replant the region with blight-resistant chestnut trees that once fattened hogs to beyond bacon tasty and furnished fine homes with some of America’s most beautiful wood.

They could reforest the ravaged strip mines with apple, peach, pear and cherry trees. They could create a recreational paradise with hiking and biking trails along restored rivers and creeks.

But among the best of these “restorations,” however, would be the restoration of hope. After all, the lack of money and hope is what combines to produce poverty.

For Clinton the Appalachian Homestead Act could be the ultimate vindication of the idea that it “takes a village” to solve enduring problems. For Trump, buying land at historically low prices could be the deal of his lifetime. For Appalachian communities, this could be “the change we can really believe in.”

Mountaineers saved the American Revolution at the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780. Let’s give them a chance to lead again.

Jim Branscome is a retired managing director of Standard & Poor’s and a former journalist whose articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Business Week, and The Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg, Ky. He was a staff member in 1969-71 at the Appalachian Regional Commission, a lobbyist for Save Our Kentucky in Frankfort, and a staff member of the Appalachian Project at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee. He was born in Hillsville, Va., and is a graduate of Berea College.

In the Coalfields, Dilapidated Sites Make Way for Renewal

A crew from Coalfield Development Corp. that’s remodeling a former warehouse in Williamson, West Virginia, is part of a broad effort to tackle empty or unkempt buildings in Appalachia.

Rural blight is a legacy of the coal industry’s boom-and-bust nature in many communities in West Virginia and its neighbors.

Earlier this year, West Virginia University began a project to help rehabbers navigate the legal web surrounding older properties. Last year marked the launch of the statewide BAD buildings project which helps towns with dilapidated properties.

While big cities have fought blight for years, experts say rural areas have lagged in creating systematic approaches. In recent years, anti-blight programs have sprung up around Appalachia.