On this West Virginia Morning, Berkeley County in 2022 celebrated its 250th anniversary. Now, the county is looking back at its history through a public art lens. By early June, a mural will be on display in the heart of Martinsburg tracing the history and culture of Berkeley County over the years.
On this West Virginia Morning, Berkeley County in 2022 celebrated its 250th anniversary. Now, the county is looking back at its history through a public art lens. By early June, a mural will be on display in the heart of Martinsburg tracing the history and culture of Berkeley County over the years.
Jack Walker spoke with Lea Craigie, the artist behind the new mural, about her public art piece so far.
Also, in this show, we listen to the latest story from The Allegheny Front – a public radio program based in Pittsburgh that reports on environmental issues in the region. Their latest piece looks at proposals to place chemical plastic recycling centers in our region.
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.
Emily Rice 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
This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commision, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
Politically, Appalachia encompasses 423 counties across 13 states — and West Virginia’s the only state entirely inside the region.
That leaves so much room for geographic and cultural variation, as well as many different views on what Appalachia really is.
For Inside Appalachia, we turned our entire episode over to the question, “What is Appalachia?” With stories from Mississippi to Pittsburgh, we asked people across our region whether they consider themselves to be Appalachian.
A 1996 map that shows the southern part of Appalachia, as defined by John Alexander Williams.
Mississippi
Bob Owens — locally known as ‘Pop Owens,’ stands in front of his watermelon stand outside New Houlka, Mississippi. Pop says he was aware that Mississippi is part of Appalachia, but that no one in the state would consider themselves Appalachian.
Credit: Caitlin Tan/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Bob Owens is a watermelon farmer outside New Houlka, in the northeastern part of Mississippi. Owens said he was aware that Mississippi is part of Appalachia, but that no one in the state would consider themselves Appalachian. “I consider myself the worst redneck you’ve ever seen,” Owens said. “I live in the area of the Appalachian mountain range — not part of it, but close to it. So I guess you call me a redneck Appalachian.” This is the general consensus among the people in Mississippi we spoke to.
Geographically, the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range are located in northern Mississippi. The state’s tallest point is Woodall Mountain, 806 feet in elevation. For reference, the highest point in North Carolina, Mount Mitchell, is more than 6,600 feet in elevation, eight times higher than Woodall Mountain.
Co-host Caitlin Tan spoke with Texas State University History professor Justin Randolph, who wrote an essay for “Southern Cultures” called “The Making of Appalachian Mississippi.” Randolph argues in his essay that Mississippi became part of Appalachia for political and racial reasons, as well as economic advantages the designation brought to the 24 counties in Mississippi that were included in the ARC’s boundaries.
Shenandoah Valley
In the 1960s, while some localities were clamoring to get into Appalachia, on the eastern edge of the region, some lawmakers fought to keep their counties outside the boundaries, including politicians in Roanoke, Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. Appalachian Studies associate professor Emily Satterwhite said explaining to her students why some counties in Virginia are included in Appalachia, but others aren’t, is confusing. “
The students in front of me are wondering why they’re not included,” White said.
Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania skyline.
Courtesy
Appalachia’s largest city is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When we asked people from that city to tell us if they consider it a part of Appalachia, about half said no. “I definitely do not feel that I am Appalachian culturally,” said Mark Jovanovich, who grew up just outside Pittsburgh’s city limits in the Woodland Hills area. “Personally, I would consider the city of Pittsburgh is sort of like a mini New York City. I guess we’d probably be lumped in as like a Rust Belt city, which makes enough sense, but definitely not Appalachian culturally.”
An editor advised him to change the title of his book to a phrase that he said is sometimes used to refer to Pittsburgh derisively. “I couldn’t figure out why that should be a putdown, because Paris is nice. And Appalachia is a beautiful part of the world. And if we were called the Paris of the Rockies, we wouldn’t run from that. So why would we run from this? Why don’t we embrace it? So that became the title of my book.”
He said that geographically, Pittsburgh is clearly in the Appalachian Mountains. “I mean, this is one mountain range that stretches from Georgia to Maine. And the idea that it belongs only to the southern part of the mountain range defies logic to me,” O’Neill said.
What Do You Think?
How about you? Do you call yourself an Appalachian? Why or why not? Send us an email to InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by John Wyatt, John R Miller, Alan Cathead Johnston, and Dinosaur Burps. Roxy Todd originally produced this episode. Bill Lynch is our current producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Alex Runyon was our associate producer on this original episode. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.
On this West Virginia Morning, there has been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence (AI), but many of us use it every day without even thinking about it. Randy Yohe spoke with Joshua Spence, chief information officer for Alpha Technologies, and Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, on what AI means for now and the future.
On this West Virginia Morning, there has been a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence (AI), but many of us use it every day without even thinking about it. Randy Yohe spoke with Joshua Spence, chief information officer for Alpha Technologies, and Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, on what AI means for now and the future.
Also, in this show, we listen to the latest story from The Allegheny Front, a public radio program based in Pittsburgh that reports on environmental issues in the region. Their latest story looks at issues with natural gas storage wells and their potential for failure.
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.
Eric Douglas is our news director and producer.
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
On this West Virginia Morning, many schools in rural areas of West Virginia have closed – leaving vacant buildings. When a community in eastern Boone County lost its elementary school, it became a community center. Briana Heaney has the story.
On this West Virginia Morning, many schools in rural areas of West Virginia have closed – leaving vacant buildings. When a community in eastern Boone County lost its elementary school, it became a community center. Briana Heaney has the story.
Also, in this show, the latest Gold Star Families Memorial Monument was unveiled on Monday in Huntington. Woody Williams, the late World War II Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, created a foundation to honor the families of those who died serving their country. This week, his final wish was granted. Randy Yohe has more.
And, Appalachia is full of spooky stories and folklore. Pittsburgh artist Genevieve Barbee-Turner channels some of that into tarot decks. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Barbee-Turner and brings us this story.
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.
Caroline MacGregor 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
Appalachia is full of haunting stories and folktales. Now, a Pittsburgh artist is channeling some of those stories into a tarot deck.
This story originally aired in the Oct. 1, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Appalachia is full of haunting stories and folktales. Now, a Pittsburgh artist is channeling some of those stories into a tarot deck.
Genevieve Barbee-Turner grew up on the Virginia coast but made a deliberate decision to move to Pittsburgh after high school. She started making tarot decks about Pittsburgh lore and issues in the city, such as harm reduction, homelessness and gentrification. Now, she’s expanded her scope with a new tarot deck, “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck.”
Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Barbee-Turner about how she got started, and what led her to branch out into Appalachia.
Adams: Twenty years ago, you made a move from a coastal city to Pittsburgh. What attracted you to that area?
Barbee-Turner: My mother’s from Pittsburgh, and so I had visited many, many times as a kid. When I was looking at universities, I knew that I did not want to go to a major city. Pittsburgh was familiar to me. I just decided, “I’ll apply to Carnegie Mellon.” Once I moved here, I remember vividly taking the 54C [bus route] into the South Side, and seeing how the hills were just dotted with all of these beautiful lights. And it felt like, I don’t know, like the sky had just descended, in a way that I’d never seen before.
Pittsburgh is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful place to me, and I just fell in love with its crooked weird streets and its iconic neighborhoods. There is no other city that is like Pittsburgh. There was never really a reason to leave here. I graduated college in 2007 with a major in art and had a pretty good idea that I was going to fund my art habit by working in a variety of different jobs. This seems like the best place to do it.
Adams: How did you get started making tarot decks?
Barbee-Turner: I studied painting, drawing and printmaking at CMU and specifically printmaking. Why am I talking about that? Why is that related to cards? Well, I love this idea of the serial image. And it’s sort of what kind of attracted me to printmaking in the first place. And then I really kind of discovered what my art practice was, I started making art every single day. And one of those things was a project called That’s What You’re Good At. And I would ask people, “What is the thing that you’re good at?” And I would draw them doing that thing. And I just had this flash of, like, this would be so cool as a deck of cards.
A mock-up of cards in the tarot deck, “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck.”
Courtesy Photo
Tarot is something that just automatically revealed itself to me. If you’re familiar with the tarot, the Major Arcana doesn’t start with one; it starts at zero, which is the fool card. And then the rest of the cards really is evidence of the journey of the fool through all of these major ideas of the Major Arcana. Like the fool meets the magician, and what does the fool learn from the magician? And the fool experiences death and what happens after that? I saw this opportunity to use tarot as a medium to kind of talk about the things that I wanted to talk about, which led me to create Bridge Witches.
Adams: Would you mind walking through the tarot decks you’ve designed so far?
Barbee-Turner: So when I created Bridge Witches, I knew that there was no way that I could put all of the stories that I wanted to put in there. So I actually designed it with the idea that I would constantly be updating it. So the first one, I really put myself through it with that one, because I’d constantly be thinking, is it tarot enough? Is it Pittsburgh enough? Is it this enough? Is it that enough?
I divided each of the suits into the four directions of the city, and I changed the suits a little bit. Instead of Swords, it was Fences. And in the Fences suit, which would be Swords in a traditional tarot deck, it was all the North Side and it was all winter. I would have all these deep cuts for people that grew up here just wandering around Pittsburgh, then the trees, which is East End, which is when I knew the most because I have lived in the East End since I’ve moved to Pittsburgh. And I just put everything in there, like the zombie card, which is not part of that suit, but is Major Arcana, and was about gentrification [and] alcoholism and millionaire’s row and all of these little tiny things. And I really wanted to include the different immigrant populations that came to Pittsburgh — not just the first colonists but also the different waves and including the more recent waves of folks from Southeast Asia.
Then each iteration, each volume, grows and changes. Like, I wanted to talk about the gig economy. Uber came and the world didn’t change for us here. This investment in technology that was supposed to be so great for the city doesn’t really seem to have gotten anywhere. It’s almost like when the robber barons came in. So I wanted to explore this idea of this history that’s constantly recycling and repeating and echoing in this area, but at the same time, you know, try to be a little celebratory and not just negative and critiquing every little thing either.
Adams: I wanted to talk about “Haunted: A Cursed Appalachian Tarot Deck,” because that’s what made me aware of your work. It’s about Appalachia more than just Pittsburgh. How did you start developing the ideas that are going into Haunted?
Barbee-Turner: Well, I basically kept running into a wall. All I wanted to do is make this deck about Pittsburgh, but there’s all these cool stories that are outside of Pittsburgh. This idea of Pittsburgh living inside of its own universe is just not accurate or real. I guess it was really just this extension of realizing that there’s just so many more stories that I want to make art about that I’m inspired by. And it’s been really hard, honestly, to pare things down.
When I started working on this deck, I talked to Thomas White, who is a folklorist, an archivist, a teacher. He’s written a bunch of books about Pennsylvania folklore. He was like, yeah, when I write these books, I can’t really talk about things in Ohio, can’t really talk about things in West Virginia, because publishers don’t like that. They want everything to be in this nice geographical thing, but that’s not how it works. That’s not how stories work. Especially in this region. There’s all these echoes of stories you hear in other places that have passed through here. They’re from all over the world, right? And then they come through here and spread out and you could actually watch that happen as colonists moved west, which I thought was fascinating. So I wanted to include specifically West Virginia and eastern Ohio. Once I kind of found my footing within that I was like, “Okay, this is perfect.”
A self-proclaimed white supremacist has pleaded guilty to charges that he made online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
A self-proclaimed white supremacist pleaded guilty Tuesday to making online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the U.S. Justice Department said.
As part of his plea agreement in federal court for West Virginia’s northern district, Hardy Carroll Lloyd admitted that the actual or perceived Jewish faith of the government witnesses and victims in the trial of Robert Bowers prompted him to target the jury and witnesses.
Lloyd, 45, of Follansbee, West Virginia, faces more than six years in prison if the plea agreement is accepted by the court.
The Justice Department described Lloyd as a self-proclaimed leader of a white supremacy movement. Prosecutors said Lloyd, who was arrested on Aug. 10, sent threatening social media posts and emails along with comments on websites during Bowers’ trial. Lloyd pleaded guilty to obstruction of the due administration of justice.
“Hardy Lloyd attempted to obstruct the federal hate crimes trial of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “His guilty plea underscores that anyone who attempts to obstruct a federal trial by threatening or intimidating jurors or witnesses will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”
In May 2022, the Texas Department of Public Safety offered a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to Lloyd’s arrest after he allegedly posted a series of comments online threatening to carry a firearm onto the Texas Capitol grounds and challenge any police officer who tried to “take enforcement actions” against him. A statement from the department said Lloyd was a convicted felon.
