Inside Appalachia Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

How Appalachian NASCAR Hall Of Famer Leonard Wood Reinvented Racing

Stock car racing’s roots run deep in Appalachia. Our twisty roads and dark hollers were home to moonshiners — and moonshine runners, who became known for their driving skills. And they became some of NASCAR’s first stars when it formed in 1948. But NASCAR’s oldest continuous racing team had nothing to do with moonshine.

This conversation originally aired in the April 21, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Stock car racing’s roots run deep in Appalachia.

Our twisty roads and dark hollers were home to moonshiners — and moonshine runners, who became known for their driving skills. And they became some of NASCAR’s first stars when it formed in 1948. But NASCAR’s oldest continuous racing team had nothing to do with moonshine.

The Wood Brothers first started running races in 1950. Glenn Wood drove their cars, and he was enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2012. His brother Leonard followed in 2013. Leonard worked on the cars, and was part of what was known as “the most skilled pit crew in the world.”

Glenn Wood passed away in 2019. The team is run by his kids and grandkids. Leonard is now 89. And he still works daily at the Wood Brothers Racing Museum in their hometown of Stuart, Virginia.

Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams dropped by to speak with him.

NASCAR Hall of Famer Leonard Wood at the team’s museum in Stuart, Virginia.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: The first thing I wanted to ask you is, I’ve had people tell me that drivers help but it’s really mechanics that win races. Is that true?

Wood: It’s both. You can have the best car in the world and the driver not do his job like it’s supposed to. But yeah, a good driver is a big credit to your winnings, but he can’t carry it on his back, he’s got to have something that’ll perform. I’d rate it equal, one or the other.

Adams: Were you mechanically inclined as far back as you can remember in life, or was there a moment where it kind of clicked for you?

Wood: No, I was always mechanical in mind. I’d always tear my toys apart. Brother Delano, his next Christmas were like brand new, and mine all torn to pieces. Back when I was just 12 years old, I was making little Jeeps out of wood. Then I made one and had a steering wheel on it and I would come roaring down that hill, the back of the hill. We used to have a bottle of oil, and we’d oil the axles and put the wheels back on so they drove faster, you know. Those little bottles are still buried up there for a long time. Then I made a gasoline-powered go kart when I was 13. It’s in the museum over there, and it’s got a washing machine motor on it.

I can remember when I was just a young thing, I told my dad I wanted something with a motor on it. And so then my sister’s husband’s dad had a washing machine with a gasoline motor on it, and when electricity came along, he took the gasoline mode off and put an electric motor on it. My brother in law gave me that motor, then I made a go kart out of it.

Hall of fame racing hands.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: Oh wow. So my 11 year old loves tearing stuff apart and sometimes builds it back together, sometimes not. What advice would you have for him?

Wood: Well, when you decide to make something, you do heavy concentration and you stick to that until you get the thing done. You don’t just do a little bit here and lay it down and all that. When you start to make something, concentrate hard on what you want to build and how you want to build it, and keep doing it ‘til you get it fixed.

I used to design zone cylinder head ports and intake manifolds and all that, and when I’d start, I’d just keep at it ‘til I got it like I wanted it. I didn’t lay it down and forget about it, come in next week and work on it. When you really want to make something and make it run, you just concentrate ‘til you fix it. I don’t know at times that I have thought of ways to do it, and something just triggers my mind how to do it. And then before I get done, something else triggers my mind, “No, this is the way you do it — even better.”

I tell people, “I know what I do know and I also know what I don’t know.” My dad always said what he didn’t know it make a great big book, and I feel the same way. But I do thank the Lord [for] the talent he gives me to do the things I do.

Adams: What’s your next project?

Wood: Eddie and Len always come up with something for me to do. They decided to have me make a half-size 427 engine. We started making it. I have a great machinist — Bennie Belcher. He’s the greatest I’ve ever seen. He can take regular milling machines and turning lathes and all that, and make it look like a CNC made it. He and I together, you know, we made this 427 half-size like we ran at Daytona.

So Eddie tells Edsel Ford what they’re going to have me to do. Edsel says, “Well, it’d be nice to have it to look like a 427 that won Le Mans in 1967.” So that’s what we ended up making, was one like that won the Le Mans race in 1967. Edsel said, “We’ll put it in the Ford museum,” so that’s where it is now. So now they decided to make a 429 Boss Hemi engine like David Pearson drove in the ‘71 Mercury. So we got that about two-thirds done right now. And we’re going to make that one run. The one in the Ford museum, the manifold, all that’s fixed, but you don’t have any parts to make it run. But this one’s gonna run.

A workshop at the Wood Brothers Racing Museum in Stuart, Virginia.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: I’ve thought about that famous Wood Brothers pit crew and how tight y’all had that system. Where did that come from? Was that a combination of the mechanics applied to the pit crew and maybe some military background? Or do you know?

Wood: We were at Charlotte in 1960, World 600, the very first one. And we had two cars. We prepared two Fords. So Fireball Roberts and Smokey Yunick made a pit stop, to change two tires and fuel. Took them 45 seconds. John Cowley with Ford Motor Company told us, “I think there’s some time to be gained in the pits.” We started working on it, so right away we was down to 25 seconds with the same deal. Then we just worked from there.

We would machine the studs, recess the end of them, you could put a lug nut on them and start the lugs. Then put a spring in the socket, so whenever you went from one lung to the other, throw the socket out and all that, and now we’ve got the tires changed. Now we’re waiting on the jack to get up. It took about 12 pumps. So I enlarged the plunger so it only takes like two strokes to jack the car up. So now I got the tires changed, now the gas won’t go in. So now we start working on the fuel system, streamline that to where it improved the fuel flow, and now we got a quick pit stop.

We was coming back from California and we stopped down at Greenville, South Carolina to fuel the truck and get a bite to eat. Brother Ray and I was in this little ton truck, and the race car’s on an open trailer and these people, these fans were all standing around looking at it. When we come out when it was 20 degrees, so we didn’t stand around and talk. We got in the truck and left.

We get between Greenville and Charlotte, ready to stop in Charlotte. And this truck starts vibrating and shaking and brother Ray said, “You can even feel it in the roof.” I’m looking at the one side to see if there was an airport nearby, an airplane warming up or whatever, and then it quit. Then we got up to Charlotte and we had to exit off, and it started up again. I look out the side glass and see steam coming out the exhaust pipe for the race car. And so I told Ray, “Stop this thing.”

We stopped and I went around, and I could see this silhouette of a human behind the windshield. I’m thinking now, one of the crew members has pulled a trick on us and got in the car. Then I’m thinking, no he ain’t that dumb, as cold as it is. I look in, this guy’s got Marvin helmet on. I said, “What do you think you’re doing?” And he said, “Let’s go!”

Anyway, we pulled him out and then about that time, a sheriff drives up, and we handed him over to the sheriff.

Adams: Oh my goodness.

Wood: I didn’t know the guy. I don’t know where he lives and haven’t heard from him since. I would love to get to talk to him. But I don’t know where he is, whatever happened to him.

Adams: Thank you very much. It’s been an honor talking to you.

Wood: Well, same here. You’ve been interesting.

——

View Leonard Wood’s 2013 hall of fame video and a video of him building a half-scale model.

W.Va. Couple Follows Passion For Woodwork By Building A Life And A Business Together

For Sue and Stan Jennings, woodworking isn’t just a way to make a living, it’s a way of life. What started out as a passion for the craft was born out of necessity. Over the last 30 years, the Jennings have developed a thriving business making wood objects called treenware — small wooden kitchen utensils.

This story originally aired in the April 21, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

The Jennings learned to make spoons through a lot of trial and error. But both of them can trace their passion for woodworking back to their childhoods.

Sue grew up helping out her father who was a contractor. Stan’s father had a sawmill and his grandfather was a carpenter. “I had a little bit of woodworking in my DNA,” Stan says.

Their mutual love of woodworking ended up being the foundation for their own relationship as a couple.

“When I met my husband, we were both working in the coal mines underground. And when we first started getting to know each other, the question we would ask is, ‘If you had anything in the world you wanted to do, what would be first on your list?’” Sue says. “And I said I wanted to be a woodworker. And he had the same dream. So right off the bat we knew there was something pretty special there.”

The chance to chase their dreams came sooner than expected. Not long after the couple met, Sue and Stan were laid off from the mines.

“We all walked in and got our pink slips and that was the end of our coal mining business,” Sue says. “And that’s how this evolved, because we needed a way to make a living.”

To make ends meet, the couple started selling odds and ends at craft shows. During that time, both experimented with making spoons.

Stan says the first set of spoons he made were less than impressive, but were created from the heart. And because he needed a cheap present for Sue.

“I suppose I was too tight to buy a Christmas gift,” Stan says. “I made her a set of dogwood spoons. And that was actually the first set of spoons we made. I’m ashamed to even show people, it turned out so bad, but Sue hung on to them.”

Sue also caught the spoon-making bug and tried to make a set herself. “The first spoon I made was a set of measuring spoons, and I made it out of rhododendron [wood],” Sue says. “And that’s because we had gone to a show and we met a spoon maker, and we talked and talked about him. I was fascinated from the very beginning.”

The Jennings discovered there was a whole culture around wooden utensils when they stumbled upon the book Treen and other wooden bygones. This book ended up changing the direction of their business. But they almost didn’t buy it.

“At the time it was like a $50 book and we stood there and agonized over spending $50 on this book because we couldn’t afford a book for $50,” Sue says. “So there was our first exposure to the word ‘treen.’”

Sue Jennings holding her copy of *Treen and other wooden bygones*, a book by Edward H. Pinto.

*Photo Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Treen is a Saxon word that refers to wooden items made from the tree for use in the kitchen or dairy. After buying the book, Allegheny Treenware was born. Much of the inspiration for their product design — and the name of their business — has come from the book.

Over 30 years later, the book is still on their shelves. It’s thick and well-worn, filled with photos of wooden kitchen items. There is a clear design connection between what is in the book and what the Jennings make today. The items are both functional and beautiful.

Over the years, the couple has grown as craftspeople thanks to a combination of grit and learning from other woodworkers. Now, times are not as tight and their process is much more sophisticated. They have several employees and a workshop full of high-end equipment. Their treenware is sold online all around the world, and the spoons are coveted collector’s items.

There’s a lot of action on the shop floor to fulfill these orders. Staff shift between workstations dedicated to a specific purpose. Each spoon starts with a pattern that is traced onto a board of wood and cut, just like a clothing pattern for fabric.

“When we make the spoon or whatever, there’s no duplicating machines, there’s no computerized equipment. Everything is truly made by hand here at this shop,” Sue says.

While there is now a team behind Allegheny Treenware, the Jennings reserve the most difficult part of the process for themselves: the shaping finish of the spoon. This requires very coarse sandpaper on a spinning disc which can cut your hands if you’re not careful.

Sue says her approach to shaping is different from Stan’s. She pre-shapes the spoon first, while Stan starts by planning things out before he sits down at a machine. “We’re different sides of the brain and we go about things differently,” Sue says. “[Stan’s] very methodical and I’m not, but we end up in the same place.”

Patterns used to make wooden utensils at Allegheny Treenware.

*Photo Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The Jennings also have complimentary skills as business partners, especially when they were selling at craft shows.

Sue reflects on how she and Stan would interact with customers. “I’m always at the booth selling and his job was to entertain,” she says. “He’d be hand-carving a spoon and he’d be telling stories, entertaining the men while the women went shopping. It worked perfectly.”

Before a spoon is complete, there are some finishing touches put on it. They burn their initials “SJ” into the spoon and then soak it in food grade oil to bring out the color of the wood.

Back of a classic wooden “granny spoon” made by Allegheny Treenware.

*Photo Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Detail of engraving on the back of a wooden spoon made by Allegheny Treenware to indicate it is made of cherry wood. Initials “SJ” indicate the product was made by Sue and Stan Jennings.

*Photo Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

These spoons are much more than wooden utensils. They represent the sweat equity of one couple who has stayed true to their dreams, and each other, for over three decades.

——

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia.

The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Appalachian Couple Shares Lifelong Dream And Sam Weber Has Our Song Of The Week, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, Sue and Stan Jennings for 30 years have run Allegheny Treenware, a company that makes wooden kitchen utensils. But they started off as a couple of coal miners. Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro has more.

On this West Virginia Morning, Sue and Stan Jennings for 30 years have run Allegheny Treenware, a company that makes wooden kitchen utensils. But they started off as a couple of coal miners. Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro has more.

Also, in this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us from Sam Weber. Known for his distinctive style that blends elements of folk, rock and Americana, Weber performed a handful of new works during his second appearance on Mountain Stage. We listen to his performance of “Hey, Hey.”

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Emily Rice and Chris Schulz produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Food, Fandom And ‘Porch Beers,’ An Appalachia Zine

Elliott Stewart has been making zines since he was 13 years old. His ongoing zine “Porch Beers” is an incisive look at Appalachian culture, through the eyes of a queer trans man.

This conversation originally aired in the March 3, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Elliott Stewart has been making zines since he was 13 years old.

His ongoing zine “Porch Beers” is an incisive look at Appalachian culture, through the eyes of a queer trans man. “Porch Beers” dives into pop culture fandom, West Virginia food and the life of a 20-something navigating moves from Huntington, West Virginia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee and back again.

Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams contacted Stewart to talk about the newest issues of his zine, and what Appalachia in 2022 looked like through the eyes of a zine writer.

Adams: So I first found “Porch Beers” kind of randomly online using a different search engine than I tried before. I ordered a couple of copies on Etsy and was just blown away. I’ve read zines for a long time, and I’ve read Appalachian zines. These grabbed my attention as a reader.

The writing is fun and short and funny, but also serious and thoughtful. And the stuff you write about is all stuff that I’m interested in. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is this person that makes “Porch Beers?”

Stewart: I guess born-and-bred West Virginian, moved around a lot as a kid. We lived with my grandparents, who are ministers and moved out every three to four years to different parts of the state. So I feel like that wanderlust has always kind of been in me. One of my ways getting in and out and recording memories is writing. My grandma has little booklets I made when I was five or six that were maybe my first zines. It’s a good way to be front and center about a lot of intersecting identities that I have. I feel a lot of people come up to me and say that I’m the first person from X group that they’ve ever met. And I don’t know, that’s kind of cool. It has a lot of responsibility to it, but it’s kind of cool.

Adams: Everybody that comes in my house, when they see these zines, they always wonder about the name. Tell us about the name “Porch Beers.”

Stewart: Sure. That was a tradition in Huntington and I’m sure elsewhere where you have a porch. Huntington is a small knit community, to where everybody knows everybody pretty much. You can go by somebody’s house or on their porch, [and they ask,] “Hey, do you want a porch beer?” “Yeah.” So you sit down, you have a talk that could be about nothing. It could be about very important heart-to-heart stuff. But that’s just a hallmark of Huntington summers, and I wanted to reflect that.

Adams: The first issue was about fandom, and you have a few different essays about different arenas of fandom per se. The second issue is about West Virginia and its food. Three was about music. And then you came back to food in issues four and four-and-a-half. What pulled you back to food after you had already written about the different kinds of foods unique to West Virginia?

Stewart: When I go to make an issue of “Porch Beers,” sometimes I will set out and it will be, “I want X theme,” and write around that theme. But more often than not, it’s just, I write a couple of articles as to what I feel, and a theme loosely takes shape. That’s what was happening with this one, to the point where I had a couple of other runner-up themes that I was going with, and my partner was like, “You might as well write about food, because that seems like where this one is drawing you to.” I was like, yeah, he’s right. That was what was on my mind. I don’t know if there was any particular reason for it. But that’s just where the writing led me.

Adams: So I read through these five issues there on specific topics — whether it’s pro wrestling, or the Ben Folds Five or West Virginia Food. But there’s a larger story arc here, too. I mean, I can read growth in these zines. You moved from Huntington to Chattanooga, and back. When you read back the zines, what is the story of “Porch Beers” so far?

Stewart: I do go back and read them at times. It is a little painful to read some of the early stuff, just because I have changed so much as a person. But I’m glad I have a record of it, that these things happened. And honestly, it’s valuable to get stories of growth out there because not a lot of people record the minutiae of life in Appalachia or in the various sub-communities I’m in

Adams: “Porch Beers” tracks this geographic shift, but it also documents a different kind of transition. Can you share a little bit more about that?

Stewart: I am an out transgender man, I have been out in one form or another as trans since about 2018. Just slowly began socially transitioning and then medically transitioning, and considered myself queer as my orientation. It’s been an interesting experience with that, a lot of learning curves. Sometimes people, when they find out, will have … I like to assume that most people are in good faith when they ask questions, but sometimes they can be very awkward or a little hurtful. But I try to take it in stride. Like specific medical questions or things, and if I don’t feel comfortable, I’m at least to the point now, where I’m like, “Hey, that’s kind of a weird thing to be asking me.” A lot of times I’m the first trans person that someone has knowingly met. And that is wild to me.

Find Elliott Stewart on Instagram.

Why An Appalachian School Board Pulled 57 Books Off Library Shelves

School boards have become the latest front in America’s culture wars — especially when it comes to books in school libraries that some people think are inappropriate for students. That situation has been playing out in Rockingham County, Virginia, which sits midway down the Shenandoah Valley.

This conversation originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

School boards have become the latest front in America’s culture wars — especially when it comes to books in school libraries that some people think are inappropriate for students.

That situation has been playing out in Rockingham County, Virginia, which sits midway down the Shenandoah Valley. In January, the school board voted to remove 57 books from school libraries, prompting an outcry from people who see this as a book ban.

Ashlyn Campbell has been covering the story for the Daily News-Record. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams reached out to Campbell to learn more about what’s happening.

Adams: We’re talking about Rockingham County, located in the Shenandoah Valley, where the school board voted 4-1 to remove 57 books from school libraries. Why did they take this vote?

Campbell: This was something that multiple members of the school board campaigned on in November. A new majority came in who were very vocally conservative. They’ve said that they’re concerned over sexual content, profanity and violence. At the meeting where they took the vote, they said, we read the books, they’re deeply disturbing to us, and we want to protect the kids and the county. So that’s kind of the gist of why they wanted to remove the 57 books.

Adams: What kinds of books were removed? Can you share some of the titles?

Campbell: It’s a broad list of books. A lot of them have to do with the LGBTQ community, racial issues, mental health, stuff like that. One of the books, Felix Ever After, is about transgender teen, which is a coming of age story. There are some books on the list that are considered classics — books like The Bluest Eye, Beloved from Toni Morrison and Slaughterhouse-Five. There are books on the list that do have sexual content, profanity, violence. Looking for Alaska is on the list.

And then there are one or two books that don’t have any sexual content, profanity, violence. One of them is The Invisible Boy, which is a picture book. And then the other one is Drama, which is a middle school theater book that has kissing but no real sexual content. With The Invisible Boy, which is a picture book that talks about not feeling alone and having empathy, one of the board members said that they think it was mistakenly included. There’s another [similar] title that has to do with race and evangelical Christianity and stuff like that. One of the school board members did say that she thinks the picture book was mistakenly included on the list.

Adams: How did students and parents respond to this decision by the school board?

Campbell: [The school board] said that this removal is temporary while they develop a new policy to review library books. The vast majority of parents and students that I’ve talked to have been very upset about the ban. Students have walked out at several of the high schools. They held a rally about all of the issues going on with the book ban. I know a lot of people have sent a lot of emails to the board sharing their concerns — they don’t think they should ban books, because they help represent students, and it’s a slippery slope, and stuff like that.

There are community members that have spoken in favor of the removal. From their point of view, they don’t want sexual content in books at school libraries. But for the most part, the vast majority of parents and students I’ve talked to or have spoken out at meetings have been against the decision.

Adams: One of the things that comes up in your story is the board members do clarify like this, they say it’s not a book ban. It’s a “temporary removal.” So what happens next in terms of process?

Campbell: They’ve started the process of creating the policy of how books enter libraries, and how books are reviewed if they’re challenged. The other week, they met with school librarians to talk about what policies they have in place, what they would like to see from the policy, stuff like that. I think that was the first meeting to talk through what those policies will look like.

They’ve said they want to hear from community members, parents, teachers, librarians, all those kinds of people to start developing the policy. They’ve said that they would like to get it out sooner rather than later. They had that first meeting, and then I think they’re going to have another meeting where they hear more from the community. But from there, they’re going to develop a policy and we’ll see what they decide to include.

Adams: One of your follow-up stories notes that this isn’t an isolated incident, but part of a national trend. And certainly, we’ve seen other communities in Appalachia that have done something similar. Can you tell us a little bit more about what’s happening in the bigger picture?

Campbell: Rockingham County is not the only school division that has experienced both challenges, book bans and removals. A lot of school divisions have removed a lot of similar titles or have similar lists that they’re removing. A lot of that has to do with this website called Book Looks, which is a book review website that, while it says it’s not connected to Moms for Liberty, it has ties to the group.

For Rockingham County, the board member who compiled the list said, I pulled these from parent complaints, but then went and researched through Book Looks. She has this document that the vast majority of the books that she researched, which was about half of the list, she said is from Book Looks. There’s at least one screenshot for one of the books that she pulled directly for Moms for Liberty, too, which is a similar theme across a lot of school divisions where they’re using Book Looks or sources like Moms for Liberty to either pull directly from those lists of books, or, like in Rockingham County, the board member used to research it.

PEN America has said that book challenges [and] book bans are on the rise. A lot of this has to do with those groups that are now pushing removal of books, like Moms for Liberty, who in a lot of school divisions are directly going in and advocating for removing a lot of the books that are also on the Rockingham County list.

Adams: So this decision was made back in January, and it’s got a lot of attention. There was a Washington Post op-ed, I see there’s a thread on Reddit, and a lot of other outlets have picked up the general story. Do you think that bigger attention has made a difference in Rockingham County at all?

Campbell: For the school board, no. Now, the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to the school board, advocating for them to put the books back and to have certain things in their process to review books. PEN America also worked with a number of authors to again advocate for them to return the books, to not have a book ban.

When I’ve talked to the chair of the board about this, he said that he’s not interested in national groups’ opinions about what’s going on because he’s listening to his constituents in Rockingham County. I think he sent a one sentence email back to PEN America that was like, “My constituents are in Rockingham County.” When I talked to him about the National Coalition against Censorship letter, he said something similar. He’s not taking anything that they’re saying into account, because he’s listening to people in Rockingham County.

Adams: Have there been any changes since this happened in January? It’s been a couple of months.

Campbell: The biggest thing that’s happened is that meeting with librarians where they shared their thoughts. A lot of them said that the decision really hurt them because the board didn’t consult them beforehand. But for the most part, I think the board is going ahead with the new policy to review challenged books, and then also to determine how books end up in school and classroom libraries. There’s been a lot of backlash. There’s been a lot of discussion about what’s going on.

But from what I’ve seen from the school board, I think they’re just going to go forward with their plan of how they’re going to develop the policy. In one of the work sessions, they did pull from a lot of other school divisions that have examples of policies for libraries. And they’ve said, not everything that are on those policies they want to include, but they want to pick and choose.

Adams: From reading your story, it looks like there are existing procedures already set up for the libraries. Can you tell us more about what those look like?

Campbell: They have collection development policies for each school. So they use things that compile reviews. There’s a number of websites that they use to look at books and determine what’s going to be included in their libraries. The division has also had a policy that was used to review challenged material for library books or instructional material. Now, the board has said that’s only for instructional material. It’s been a practice to use it for library material, but really, the policy is only written for instructional material. The policy has been used for library material for a number of years.

For the school division, libraries have collection development policies. Parents can go in and research what books are in their school libraries. And parents also have the option to be notified when their child checks out books, so they can see what their kid is checking out and, from my understanding, it’s in the single digits for the number of people that have actually utilized that option. So there are school-specific collection development policies. They use a lot of similar resources. There also was a county policy that they said is used for instructional material, but has been used for library material in the past.

Violets Make Medicine, Munchies And Memories

Every spring, violets bloom across Appalachia, a carpet of purple, white and yellow. These unassuming flowers do everything from spruce up a cocktail to fight cancer. Here are a few of the ways herbalists use them for food and medicine.

This story originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Brandy McCann is a self-taught herbalist from Blacksburg, Virginia, who considers violets a personal gift. She was born in late April, when the flowers typically bloom.

It has always delighted McCann that she was born on Earth Day. When her mother went into the hospital, things were a bit dark and dreary, but when she emerged a week later, violets were in bloom.

“So that’s always been a very special thing to me, when I see the violets blooming, every spring around my birthday, I just feel like it’s such a gift from Mother Nature,” McCann says.

McCann enjoys reciprocating the gift of violets by using them to make presents for friends and family. In her sunny kitchen with a view of the flowers growing in her yard, she demonstrates how to make skin toner.

“I have a jar full of dried violets and I harvested them probably a couple of weeks ago. I let them air dry on a towel and put them in the jar,” McCann says. “And then I have here some jojoba oil, or you can use olive oil, any kind of carrier oil that’s good for the skin. And then I pour the oil and fill the jar, leaving just a tiny bit of headspace and then set a lid on it, and give her a good shake out every day.”

For a month or so, McCann says to keep the infused oil in a clean glass jar away from light, heat and dampness. Then strain out the plant material and keep the oil.

Brandy McCann makes skin toner from violets and jojoba oil. She has made gifts from violets for more than a decade.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

That’s one fun project people may want to try with violets, but there are many uses for these flowers. Nica Fraser studied at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. She teaches her daughters herbalism as part of their homeschool curriculum. One of their projects is making violet lavender sugar.

Tastes differ, but Fraser suggests one to two tablespoons of culinary dried lavender combined with two cups of sugar is a good base. To this you can add a fourth- to a half-cup or so of dried violets — leaf and flower, not roots. Start with less and add as you go, then blend the mixture until smooth. Taste, then add anything you think it needs more of.

A blender can be used to make violet sugar. A mortar and pestle will also work.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Learning with violets can be fun, and Fraser particularly likes that the violets add vitamins to the sugar all children love.

“I think per gram, you get about double the dose of vitamin C in a gram of a violet leaf than you do in a gram of an orange. They’re also rich in vitamin A, they’ve got great magnesium content, and they’ve even got calcium in them,” Fraser says.

Fraser’s youngest fills a flower bowl for processing back at the house. Fraser has taught her daughters to forage for spring violets, along with other edible flowers.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

That high vitamin content is also why Fraser likes to watch her daughters pick flowers during playtime — and consume them.

Of her oldest daughter, she says, “One of her favorite things to do is to know that she can just be walking outside playing, take a break, eat some flowers and keep going.”

Fraser learned to love foraging from her grandmother, who taught her as a child to hunt morels.

“She was actually the person who planted that seed in me, that you could find nourishment out in nature.”

It is a seed Fraser delights to see growing in her children as they forage on the family homestead in southeastern Ohio.

“I get to take my two daughters out into the woods, and I teach them what I know, and they are so very interested,” Fraser says. “They light up … they love taking this in and they retain it. They apply it, they ask questions, and it’s just really, really enjoyable to watch these little budding herbalists run around in the yard every day with their inquisitive minds.”

Those minds have retained a great deal of information, even at their tender ages. Fraser asks her kids whether they should eat violets that grow near poison ivy, and they come up with excellent information.

Violets are versatile and vibrant.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

Fraser’s daughters head toward a favorite foraging spot. They have been learning about plants during home school lessons with their mother.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

“We definitely don’t want to pick it because it will put the oils on from the poison ivy,” the girls reply, more or less in chorus. They add not to pick near busy roads where car exhaust would saturate the petals and leaves, or in a barnyard pasture, because — poop.

Keeping all those caveats in mind, violets are still one of the safest flowers for new foragers because they’re so easy to identify.

Dr. Beth Shuler and a patient at Powell Valley Animal Hospital. Shuler studied herbal medicine for animals as a supplement to her licensed veterinary practice.

*Photo Credit: Powell Valley Animal Hospital*

Dr. Beth Shuler, a veterinarian who studied at Purple Moon Herbs and Studies, loves violets.

“They just make me smile. I like that they’re gentle, they’re easy to find,” Shuler says. “It’s so safe and easy to use that you can put it in your cocktail or your salad, but at the same time it’s very strong and powerful enough to help cure cancer.”

Shuler owns Powell Valley Animal Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and often uses violets in her practice. She says they’re a good herb for breast care in dogs and people.

“Most of the dogs that we would use violets for are dealing with breast cancer, mammary cancer or mastitis,” Shuler says. “We would do a combination of oral treatment with a tincture.”

Violets are also a great cleanser for infected wounds. Shuler’s youngest dog, Sirrus, is about to get a special treat because Shuler wanted the flower power working inside of him. He had cut his foot on some ice, and it was a little bit swollen.

Or, as Shuler puts it, “he’s got mild lymphatic inflammation up in his axillary lymph node draining from that injured toe. So I’m placing some tincture, violet tincture in ethanol, on a corner of a piece of toast.”

Sirrus chows down. Shuler’s pleased by that, adding that giving dogs toast is not a common thing in her household, since bread is not good for dogs as part of a daily diet.

“But it does act as a very nice absorptive sponge for tinctures to go down easily. And less mess,”

Schuler explains that humans and dogs have multiple lymph nodes; think of them as internal trash cans trying to keep the garbage away. When people get sick, lymph nodes under our arms sometimes swell up and ache. But lymph nodes have no pump. Violets are excellent at breaking up and dispelling lymph from our bodies. Just another reason to love it, in Shuler’s opinion. But also a reason to treat it with respect and not eat too many of them at once.

“The violet is very powerful and easy to find. But again it is not a simple herb,” Shuler says.

In other words, don’t go eat a bunch of violets — or rub them on your dog’s feet — and expect either one of you to feel better right away. Shuler’s dog Sirrus got a few days of tincture toast.

Sirrus, the youngest of the Shuler/Tester family dogs, is happy to have eaten violet toast live on the radio. He had a mild cut that became inflamed, so Shuler treated him for a few days with violet tincture.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

“It’s not a one dose and done,” Shuler says. “These are built up in the body as repetitive use, it’s not an overnight fix.”

Literally safe enough for small children to swallow as a snack, violets can clean wounds, fight cancer or spruce up a gin and tonic. Violets are nothing if not versatile.

Violet gin fizzes are wonderful drinks. Shuler made two for drinking in her back garden, as a celebration of violet versatility.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Dr. Beth Shuler and her husband Dr. Brandon Tester both took classes held on the North Carolina coast from Purple Moon Herbs and Studies. She is a veterinarian; he is a chiropractor.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

For a fun list of things to do with violets, check out Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. Remember, never try a new unidentified plant or medicine without first consulting an expert.

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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.