Huntington’s City Council chambers were filled Monday night with employees participating in two separate strikes at the Cabell Huntington Hospital and Special Metals. Members of the council considered a resolution that called for both organizations to come to the negotiating table in good faith.
The motion was blocked by Huntington’s legal team on grounds of impartiality.
The resolution in support of the strikers was introduced by Councilman Bob Bailey. He noted the importance to “get behind these people in these picket lines. Christmas is coming. […] They need Christmas presents for their children. So I’m only going to pray that you’ll do the right thing. And back these union people. These are our people.”
A federal mediator has called on the Cabell Huntington Hospital and SEIU to return to the negotiating table on Nov. 30.
Molly Frick, director of human resources for Cabell Huntington Hospital, issued a statement Monday. “We eagerly await confirmation to return to the bargaining table,” Frick said. “We presented our last offer to the SEIU District 1199 on Nov. 9. As of today, not only have we not received a counteroffer, we have not received any response. We recognize a strike is a serious matter that deserves earnest action.
She added: “Work stoppages at hospitals differ from those at industrial facilities. The very health and well-being of human lives are the responsibility of the entire team. We have heard from many union members that they’re ready to return to caring for patients and supporting operations. We encourage the SEIU to either respond to our offer or return to the bargaining table, so that our team members can return to work.”
The organizing director of SEIU District 1199, Sherri McKinney, argued in a statement that the Cabell Huntington Hospital isn’t truly acting in good faith, “when they have made an offer far less than what we have already had for decades and bargained for on Nov. 3.”
“It is our hope that the hospital will do what is just and fair and stop this strike in good faith during this holiday season for the Huntington Community at-large, but after the many false statements to the media and divisive tactics, they need to find another way of conducting business,” McKinney said.
Two union hospital employees came to speak before the council in support of Bailey’s resolution to support the striking workers.
Union worker Trish Burns shared with the city council how her sudden loss of health care has affected her 25-year-old son. “He’s a full-time college student. He has worked full time to pay for his education. Last week he was admitted to the hospital with no insurance because Cabell ripped my insurance away.”
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Trish Burns speaking at the 11-22-2021 City Council Meeting
Council member Tia Rambaugh called for her colleagues to take a position. “Ultimately, I think that governance and administration should not remain impartial in these situations, because this is our community,” Rambaugh said.
Despite her background in business, she argued that it was unethical to stay quiet on the sidelines. “You guys are our workers. We are your neighbors. And it’s important for us to make our opinions known so that administration in these businesses can potentially recognize that they’re not working in a silo, that we all have to work together, and that our opinions mean something.”
Councilman Patrick Jones was the last to speak on the resolution. With tears in his eyes, Jones argued it is not unreasonable to demand higher compensation to keep pace with inflation. “Their children, many of whom I see in the halls of our schools each day while I’m working, can enjoy this holiday season in the same manner with a feeling of security and peace that the families of officials in management at these institutions will surely enjoy,” Jones said.
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Huntington Councilman Patrick Jones
Council members officially didn’t side with either the workers or the companies. It is the 53rd day since the Special Metals strike began, and it is the 20th day of the Cabell Huntington Hospital strike.
Jones swore that if there is not a deal made in the next two weeks, he will introduce another resolution to the city council.
The news that Brad Smith will become Marshall’s next president sparked high interest across the state as the corporate CEO returns home to helm his alma mater.
Community leaders in the Huntington area say they are optimistic for the future of the University.
“I’m a bit biased because I was on the Presidential Search Committee,” said Tracy Christofero, who serves as chair of Marshall University’s Faculty Senate, “What I like about him as a candidate is that he knows Marshall, he knows the environment. He knows the culture of West Virginia, and I believe he has always had the best interest of the university and the region at heart.”
Cathay Burns, Executive Director of the Huntington Municipal Development Authority, said that Brad Smith has been an advocate for revitalization by facilitating economic growth. She said Smith’s selection can create dual connectivities — “not only for the students, but also for business leaders and economic development leaders in the region. And not just the community, but the entire region, the entire state and the surrounding states.”
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams was similarly hopeful that Smith’s corporate leadership background will help him to shape a strong mindset for the future of the state. “Frankly, I can’t be more thrilled for Huntington and for the state of West Virginia that we have him right here to be able to help us create a culture of entrepreneurship,” Williams said.
Having Smith as Marshall’s president means his skills and knowledge can be passed down to students in the region, Williams said. He thinks Smith has the ability, “to lead, to teach, and also to reinforce that we can compete with anybody.”
Marshall University Photos
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Marshall University Photos
Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert hugging his successor Brad Smith
Despite the warm reception from community leaders and faculty, some students have expressed concern over Smith’s background outside of academia. Student body president Alyssa Parks said students are slowly warming up to the new president despite some initial hesitancy.
“Brad has been really open to talking to anyone who has had any concerns. I think that’s a really great quality in him. He’s open to tough conversations. He’s open to criticism,” Parks said. “Once he gets into the office, he can start talking to people and people really get to know him.”
The hiring model of selecting a non-academic to lead a public institution isn’t new, Christofero said. “Some percent of the universities now are run by people with non-traditional backgrounds in academia.”
Christofero doesn’t see Smith’s background as being a hindrance if he has the right people around him. “As long as we have a strong provost, that’s really who takes care of the academic side. Theoretically, the president certainly needs to deal with our donors and all of the university, the legislators, fundraising and promoting Marshall to help increase enrollment.”
The City of Huntington and Cabell County are in federal court, taking prescription opioid distributors to task. If the city and county win their lawsuit, that could result in a payout of tens of millions of dollars. And in theory, that money could help fix the problem.
Dr. Lyn O’Connell works with the City of Huntington to tackle the substance use crisis through clinical services, research and program development.
She was also part of a team that produced a “resiliency plan” in 2020 for Huntington. The plan outlines a continuum of care her community could implement to stomp out the opioid crisis.
Health reporter June Leffler asked O’Connell how much a big settlement could loosen the grip opioids have on her community.
This interview was lightly edited for clarity.
Leffler: Do tell me what more we could see in a place like Huntington that already has so many different groups trying to tackle this issue?
O’Connell: I think what many folks imagine is that if an individual wants help, they just pick up the phone, or they just go to the doctor, or they walk in somewhere. It’s really not that easy.
There may be legal issues that need to be handled, there may be child or custodial issues that need to be handled. There may be wait lists that prevent them from doing any of those things. And so what we want to make sure is that we have a system that when someone says “I am ready and willing to enter treatment,” that there are no roadblocks. That transportation is not an issue, insurance is not an issue, that we’re coordinating across all of our systems to ensure that they have easy access. Because we know that when someone is ready and willing, that is the best time to intervene with that individual.
But we also know that it’s not just the individual, it’s the system, the family and the community. It’s a multi-factorial need. Every time that you quote solve one issue, you realize that there’s 10 more sitting behind it.
Leffler: What you think big settlement for the county and the city could accomplish? And what can any amount of money still not get done?
O’Connell: It’s such a challenge, because how do you value a single life lost? How do you place a value on those long-term negative impacts? I, for one, don’t know how to do that. And what can $1 do? Everything and nothing, simultaneously.
We have had grant funding that has allowed us to set up programs like PROACT, that make a concrete difference every day in the lives of people in our community. And things like Project Hope for Women and Children. But to some of the larger sort of systemic and philosophical issues that we’re facing, we will probably always be facing those.
If we take stigma, for example, if we don’t address people’s beliefs that other people aren’t as worth saving, we’re still going to have these fights and these issues, because we’ll have barriers. We’ll have providers who maybe don’t want to work with an individual with a substance use history, or employers that don’t want to hire someone with a substance use history, or judges that may not want to give someone a second chance, whether that’s remaining out of jail or prison or gaining greater custody and access to their children.
We can set up programs and improve access. But we also need to slowly work to educate that no one wakes up one day and hopes to enter a life of substance use disorder. Ideally, multi-millions of dollars being returned to this community could be used to comprehensively address both the concrete issues, but also start to address the philosophical needs as well.
There are fewer West Virginians than there were a decade ago.
Since 2010, West Virginia’s population has decreased by 3.2% or almost 60,000 people, according to 2020 census data released last month.
To put that in context, it’s the same as if a giant, town-sized pothole swallowed up both Morgantown and Parkersburg.
West Virginia is also one of the oldest states in the nation, has one of the lowest birth rates and the highest death rate.
There’s a growing cohort of college-bound West Virginians who get a degree and get out. They’re moving away to find a future somewhere else while leaving family and friends behind.
But, there are also people staying who see West Virginia as a place to settle down and start a family.
The decision is not easy, but it is one that confronts many soon-to-be and recent graduates in the state.
This article is the first in our series “Plugging the Brain Drain” with stories of how young West Virginians are deciding whether or not to leave the state.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke with NaBryia Palmer, a nursing student in Cabell County and Charleston native.
‘There’s No Room To Grow’: Nursing Student Talks Leaving W.Va.
NaBryia Palmer My take on it is, I love my state, I love my mountain mama, I really do. It’s where all my family is, everyone I know is here. But, I just honestly feel there’s no room to grow. I want to be able to see more and do more. And I feel West Virginia just doesn’t have anything to offer in that sense. I have just the rest of this semester, and then one more year in school left. And I don’t know, I don’t think I’m gonna stay here. I really want to move.
WVPB: Once you have your degree and you’ll have graduated, how are you thinking through that whole decision of where do I move?
Palmer: As soon as it gets close to graduation, I’m going to look at places hiring in potential states that I want to move to, see what they have to offer, look at pay, living conditions, and stuff like that. I like to travel alone sometimes. And so when I go out of state, and I visit different areas, I’m just like, “Oh, this would be nice. Oh, here in West Virginia, we don’t have that.” We don’t have a lot in West Virginia. And it’s always really good to go to states and see what they have to offer.
WVPB: What types of things have you seen traveling that you go, “oh, I’ve never seen this back home.”
Palmer: I’m a big food person. So, when it comes to restaurants and stuff, I get really excited when there’s a new restaurant I’ve never seen, I’ve never tried because there’s not one near my area. And so that gets pretty exciting. I also like to do a lot of shopping. So I’m really impatient, too. With living in West Virginia, we don’t have a lot of stores and as we speak, a lot of stores and stuff in the mall are closing. So we have less and less options. I’m constantly having to shop online and wait for it to come in. When, in other areas and other states, they have a broad variety of shopping malls and stores. And I just feel we’re just missing out on a lot of things.
WVPB: How do you balance, both you’re thinking about leaving and all your family is here in the state?
Palmer: Well, I’ve always been a pretty independent person. And my family knows that. So, of course, I love being around my family, I love seeing them. But they know that I do also like to be able to do things on my own. Because you know, I’m an adult, I like to be able to have my own. So with that, say I do move. I plan to always come back for holidays. I’m really big on holidays and spending time with family. And then to certain vacations, just be able to come back and see them whenever I really just want to.
WVPB: Does finding job opportunities play into that decision at all?
Palmer: Kind of yes and no. Since nurses are in demand, I feel like it won’t really be that hard, especially with COVID. I don’t think it’d be extremely difficult to find a nursing job that I would like.
WVPB: What do you think you’ll be thinking about when you get to that moment where you’re deciding whether or not to go someplace else or to look for a job in West Virginia?
Palmer: I don’t know. I’m real set on moving – like I’m real set on moving. I have, just I’ve honestly been looking at places even though I still have a while to graduate. I’ve been looking at places out of state and seeing affordability and neighborhoods and stuff like that.
WVPB: How detailed has it gotten, looking at neighborhoods?
Palmer: I’ve actually gotten to the process of looking at places that are for rent and where they’re located, how close they are to certain hospitals, commute, grocery stores, all that. I’ve gotten really into it, I’m real set on moving. I haven’t done that for a lot of states. I’ve only mostly done that for Texas. And I say that and I think it’s so funny because I’ve only been to Texas once, but I just enjoyed it so much.
WVPB: Does your family care or not want you to leave or want you to leave?
Palmer: They don’t want me to leave in the sense of, I’m going to be away. We’re a really close family. We are always used to being with each other. I think it’s funny. My mom, my cousin, my brother and my granny, they all live on the same hill, on the same block. So it’s like we’ve always been really close, always been. ‘Oh I’m about to walk up to Granny’s house or about to go see my brother,’ because it’s just literally a two-second walk up the hill. And so me being even here in Huntington away from Charleston is still really different because we’re always used to being there. So when I do move out of state, it’s going to be pretty drastic for our family since we’re not able to just take a quick little drive and see each other. It’s going to be some planning. So that’s going to take some getting used to for sure.
This story is the first in our series “Plugging the Brain Drain” with stories of how young West Virginians are deciding whether or not to leave the state.
Mayors from eight cities in the Ohio Valley, including Pittsburgh, Morgantown, Huntington and Louisville, have joined forces to call for a new effort to revitalize the region.
In an essay in the Opinion section of the Washington Post, the group called for a 21st Century version of the World War II-era Marshall Plan, the U.S. aid program that helped rebuild Europe after the war.
Now the mayors want to see that type of investment in the Ohio Valley. They are requesting the equivalent of $60 billion a year, over 10 years, in private and public investment, and tax breaks.
Mayor Steve Williams, from Huntington, West Virginia, was one of the signers of the Washington Post essay. He spoke with Eric Douglas to discuss the group’s ideas.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: The analogy that’s used in the essay is the Marshall Plan, the post-World War II reconstruction plan for Europe. Why do you feel that’s an appropriate analogy to what we’re facing in, in the Ohio Valley?
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Steve Williams, mayor of Huntington, West Virginia.
Williams: I believe, particularly in the Ohio River Valley, and Appalachia, we are the forgotten part of the country. Everybody seems to talk about the Northeast and the South and the Midwest, and the West. But when you look at the Ohio River Valley, the mountainous area that we’re in, including the Great Lakes area, there are a lot of folks that come in wanting us to help them but when we absolutely need the help, all of the sudden we’re forgotten. And that’s why I believe that we’re the forgotten America.
Douglas: I see the point made that Appalachia powered the Industrial Revolution, powered the great build up of the nation.
Williams: None of us here will ever allow ourselves to be seen as a victim. Ever. That’s within our culture. You look at what has happened here. There are some things that we have within our DNA that we need to take full advantage of. And we believe that we need to have a federal partner in order to be able to accomplish these things.
Douglas: You mentioned the Appalachian Regional Regional Commission. Are you thinking this would be a program under the ARC?
Williams: It could be part of the ARC. None of us are coming in saying that we have to build a new federal agency. I believe that the ARC would be perfectly capable of doing this.
Douglas: You mentioned that this is not a Green New Deal. That’s not the direction you’re heading. But you made several points in the essay that you are looking for greener jobs.
Williams: It just makes sense. Much like when the automobile was coming into the Detroit area. What do you think happened to those horse and buggy manufacturers? Did they continue doing that? Were they a buggy manufacturer? Or were they a transportation company?
Are we oil and gas? Are we coal? Or are we energy? We’re starting to see these companies focusing on energy. And in that regard, we’re saying green energy. Let’s make sure that we’re doing things where the investments are being made.
Douglas: The estimate for this program is $60 billion a year over the next 10 years. So $600 billion in federal block grants, tax credits. It’s not just cash, obviously.
Williams: Theway that I look at it, that’s a small price to pay. A $600 billion investment will turn into a trillion dollars — trillions of dollars. I’m not looking at something that turns over five times, where then all sudden it is $3 trillion. I’m looking at thousands of times.
My background is finance. I used to be a stockbroker. I was an investment banker. If somebody is coming to me saying, “You place an investment here and you’d be able to get a tenfold return.” But the fact of the matter is, you recognize what the return on investment truly could be, we can’t afford not to do this.
Editors Note: The following article was also published in the Fall 2020 issue of GOLDENSEAL Magazine.
On the evening of November 14, 1970, 75 Marshall University football team members, coaches and community members lost their lives in a plane crash.
Obviously, the crash changed the lives of the families forever. But the crash changed Huntington, West Virginia and Marshall University, too.
In the late 1960s, Huntington was a typical city for the region. It had a thriving business sector with steel and glass making factories as well as a company that manufactured railroad cars.
Marshall University was located in the middle of Huntington, but it was separate. The community supported the football and basketball teams on game days, but there wasn’t much more of a connection. The relationship between the blue-collar town and the university wasn’t strained; they just had little to do with each other.
That changed after the crash.
About the same time, the city began going through economic changes of its own. The nation itself was in an economic slump in the late 1960s that entered an official recession in 1969 and 1970. The heavy industry that had propelled Huntington to prominence began to close.
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The Memorial Fountain reflected in the calm waters of the surrounding pool after the fountain is turned off for the winter.
Aftermath
Morris “Mac” McMillian was a student at Marshall when the plane crashed. He described the atmosphere on campus in those next few days as “devastated.”
“Everything was closed, except for the old Shawkey Student Union. We sat there and stared at each other. We didn’t know what to do. There were no announcements. The buildings were closed, there were no classes,” McMillian said.
And there was only one subject on everyone’s mind.
“People just walked around in a daze downtown. And then people would, if you would get engaged in conversation with someone, it would be ‘Did you know anybody on the plane?’,” he said.
Like a lot of people who were on campus at the time, McMillian knew members of the football team and it is still a sensitive topic. He said he has not been able to visit the Spring Hill Cemetery where several former players are buried including those who remain unidentified.
Mike Kirtner was a Marshall University Sophomore in 1970. He was working for WMUL, the student-led radio station, when he heard the first reports of the crash.
Kirtner was on a date, but immediately drove to Tri-State Airport to find out what was going on. With his student press credentials, he was able to gain access to the airport and the crash site itself.
“One vivid memory I have from that night is seeing the old school bus they used to take the team to campus. It was painted white, but it had Marshall University on the side. That bus was empty and it was a misting rain. I remember seeing that bus sitting there empty. For whatever reason that’s the most vivid memory of that evening,” he said.
Kirtner, who now owns Kindred Communications, said he grew up in the Huntington area and described it as a typical “Leave it to Beaver” blue collar town.
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The 1970 Marshall University football team.
“I think, when the plane crash occurred, that’s when Marshall became a college town. That’s when the transition started, because suddenly the innocence was gone. I mean, we’d been through the Silver Bridge disaster and various things that happened, but after that happened in Huntington, it all changed,” he said.
For Kirtner, the aftermath of the plane crash brought about a grieving process for the entire town. By the next year, he was a radio DJ and he became more aware of the emotional attachment people made to the team.
“I actually collected 100s of names in support of the new football team. When they decided to play football again, that’s when people started bonding with the football program and they became emotionally attached to it versus just being a sports attachment,” Kirtner said.
Lessons and Determination
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams during his playing days.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams was a member of the Thundering Herd football team. He didn’t arrive on campus until 1974, but he grew up in the region and was very familiar with Huntington and the Marshall football coaching staff. His father was almost a member of the staff, too, although Williams didn’t learn that until the movie We are Marshall came out.
Dr. Don Williams was friends with Marshall Head Football Coach Rick Tolley. Tolley offered the senior Williams the Offensive Coordinator coaching position at Marshall, but Williams turned him down. If he hadn’t, Williams likely would have been on the plane.
In the film, there is a scene in the film where the acting Marshall University president Dr. Donald Dedmon is going through a list of potential coaches calling them and then scratching names off the list. After watching the film with his parents, Steve Williams asked his dad if he ever wondered what would have happened if he had gotten that call since he quit coaching at Concord College in 1969.
“Dad said, ‘I did’. My mother’s fork just dropped. She didn’t even know that. Dad said he told the university he would only be interested if he could be head coach and athletic director. They said they were separating the two jobs. Dad went off that next year to Virginia Tech to work on his doctorate. When he finished his doctoral work and he got another call from Marshall. Marshall just kept calling our family. We were destined to be together,” Williams said.
For Williams, the biggest lesson for Marshall, and for the city of Huntington, was determination.
“If you want to understand Marshall, if you want to understand Huntington, understand we never give up. You think you’re ever going to take us down? It might take us 30 years, but we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to come back, and we will end up prevailing,” he said.
For Williams, Marshall is the heartbeat of Huntington. “Make no mistake about it, Marshall today is the heart and soul of the city and it became that way because of the crash,” he said.
For a long time, no one in Huntington talked about the plane crash. Joe “Woody” Woodrum, the long-time team manager and former color commentary announcer for the football program, said.
“We didn’t talk too much about the crash. I mean, it was largely avoided my first 10 years here,” Woodrum said. He came to the Marshall campus in January of 1975. “We were trying to rebuild the program.”
Woodrum said he has materials from those early years and there was little to no mention of the plane crash at all.
“I’ve got a media guide from 1971. It has a brief bit about the crash and the worst disaster in modern sports history. And that was it,” he said.
We are Marshall documents the decision to bring back the football program immediately after the crash but Woodrum recalls those discussions happening for years, especially while the team continued to struggle.
“I remember Bill Smith in the Daily Mail wrote a column about 1979 or 80 and said ‘Marshall should give up football. You’ve got a great basketball program. Why not put more money into that?’,” Woodrum said.
From Woodrum’s perspective, the thing that helped people begin to open up was when the team began winning. The first winning season posted by the football team, following the crash, was in 1984.
“I think that’s when people began to accept and be able to talk about the plane crash,” Woodrum said.
Mike Hamrick played football for Marshall University during the rebuilding years. He arrived on campus in January of 1976, after a semester at a junior college, and graduated in 1980. He played for the Thundering Herd in the 1976, 77, 78 and 79 seasons. Hamrick went on to a long career in university athletics before returning to Marshall as the Athletic Director in 2009.
Marshall University Athletic Director Mike Hamrick
“There were people into the mid to late 70s that didn’t think Marshall should have football. Just imagine you are an 18 or 19-year-old college kid and you’re playing for the Thundering Herd and people in the community are telling you ‘Man, we don’t need football here. Let’s just forget about football’,” Hamrick said. “In the 70s, we didn’t refer to the plane crash at all.”
Hamrick says the players from those early years kept the program alive during the tough times when the team wasn’t winning.
“Without the guys in the 70s, the late 70s, the program probably would have gone away. I’m telling you, I was there. There were people that wanted the program to go away. And thank goodness for the leadership at Marshall at the time. They kept football going and look what it’s done for our university today,” he said.
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The Marshall University Memorial Fountain.
Moving Forward
Each fall, on November 14, the university turns off the fountain at the Memorial Student Center in a ceremony that has grown over the years. It features members of the community, families of those lost and members of the athletic department.
The current president of Marshall University, Dr. Jerome Gilbert, is a fairly new arrival at Marshall University. He took over the position in January 2016. After he had been announced as president, but before he began the job, he was able to attend a fountain ceremony on November 14, 2015.
“It was very moving and emotional and hard to describe if you’ve never been there. The intensity of the emotion and the intensity of the feelings that are present on that day with so many people gathered there to pay their respects. It made me feel there was a very special bond at Marshall, due to the tragedy,” Gilbert said.
Dr. Gilbert said Mayor Williams was right about the connection between the school and the town.
Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert
“When you look at a lot of universities in cities and towns, there’s often the town-gown rivalry. The town folk don’t want to associate with the university folks and there’s some of that vice versa. That was a positive side effect of the plane crash. It really drew the city and the university closer together,’ he said. “There’s very little distinction between the city and the university. They embrace each other. And I think that’s the way it should be.”
Dr. Gilbert equated plane crash and the community reaction in the city of Huntington to the trauma of war.
“You see a lot of World War Two veterans that never talked about the war when they were younger and then, in their later years, they started talking about it. My father-in-law was certainly in that camp,” Gilbert said. “He wanted to put it out of his mind because it was such a horrible experience. I think it’s something that you have to give time to be able to psychologically deal with it. So I think that has been part of it over the years, to sort of make peace with the whole event and to be able to talk about it and commemorate it in appropriate ways as we’re doing now.”
Today
Fifty years after the plane crash, the Marshall community, both the school and the community that surrounds it, is able to discuss the plane crash. There is still emotion and there are tears, but they are mixed with pride at what the university has accomplished since November 14, 1970. Those who are still involved with the program make sure new arrivals to campus understand that legacy.
“The parents of the recruits really understand it, when they’re doing their homework before they come up with their son on their recruiting trip, but if they don’t understand it before they get here, I can promise you, they understand that once they get here,” Hamrick said.
As part of the recruiting visits, Hamrick said they hear real people talk about their stories of losing their parents or losing an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent or a friend.
“It doesn’t take them long once they get on this campus to understand what that fountain means, and to run up to Spring Hill Cemetery and see that memorial and look at the graves of those unidentified players. It sinks in real quick what this is all about,” he said.
Before the film We Are Marshall was the 2000 documentary Marshall University: Ashes to Glory that helped the community begin talking about the plane crash. In the 50 years since the crash, and in the 20 years since that documentary, Marshall fans around the world have been able to understand the connection between the town and the university.
“I think, over the years, Marshall and Huntington have grown as one and we are one. I don’t think either one of us could survive in the manner that we would like if we were not joined together. So yeah, we’re all in this together. November 14, 1970 is a part of Huntington, it’s a part of Marshall, and it will always be that way,” Hamrick said.
This story is the result of a partnership between GOLDENSEAL Magazine, and West Virginia Public Broadcasting. A print version of this story appears in the Fall issue of Goldenseal Magazine. The entire issue is dedicated to the plane crash and you can buy a copy here.
