Newspaperman Jim Comstock was born in Richwood on February 25, 1911. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned to his hometown and established the Richwood News Leader. Then, in 1957, he founded the legendary West Virginia Hillbilly newspaper. The Hillbilly became a forum for Comstock’s conservative politics and wry wit.
A consummate practical joker, Comstock once injected ramp juice into his ink as a nod to Richwood’s annual Feast of the Ramson. After the pungent newspapers were mailed to subscribers, Comstock was reprimanded by the U.S. postmaster general for sending the offensive-smelling ink through the mail. And he founded the University of Hard Knocks, an honorary society for successful individuals who never completed college.
Comstock also published the book Pa and Ma and Mr. Kennedy and the 50-volume West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia.
In 1963, he created Mountain State Press to publish important books about West Virginia. In addition, he fought to preserve author Pearl Buck’s birthplace at Hillsboro and to rescue the historic Cass Scenic Railroad. The best-known newspaperman of his generation, Jim Comstock died in 1996 at age 85.
J.D. Vance, author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” returns to his native Kentucky this week. But Vance isn’t selling books this time. He’s leading a bus tour of well-heeled venture capitalists looking for investment options in the region.
Vance worked with AOL founder Steve Case to line up big-name investors for what they call the “Rise of the Rest” tour. Vance is now managing partner for the Rise of the Rest Fund, which names Jeff Bezos of Amazon and former Google executive Eric Schmidt among its investors.
Vance said “the rest” applies to anyone outside the Silicon Valley, Boston and New York tech centers, the places that take up about three-quarters of venture capital investment.
“To us the ‘rest’ is pretty much everybody that’s struggling over that small pot of money,” Vance said. “If only three states are getting most of the venture capital, that means only three states are getting most of the net job growth.”
A previous tour rolled through Detroit and other industrial Midwest cities. This leg includes Birmingham, Chattanooga and a May 11 visit to Louisville. The stops feature pitch contests for a select group of hopeful candidates vying for an investment of up to $100,000.
But Vance said the main purpose is to raise visibility for the “entrepreneurial ecosystems” in parts of the country that the economic recovery has left behind.
“We don’t think Rise of the Rest will solve all the economic problems for the entire region but we think and we have a lot of confidence that it will help,” he said.
“Hillbilly” Backlash
Since Vance’s memoir about his dysfunctional family hit the best-seller list, he’s become a go-to guide for media outlets seeking an explanation for all things Appalachian. He’s a regular on cable news programs and wrote several columns for The New York Times.
Credit Naomi McColloch
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J.D. Vance drew on his own painful family history for “Hillbilly Elegy”
But Vance also attracts critics who say he blames the poor for their own predicament.
Negative reviews of “Hillbilly Elegy” say Vance’s focus on personal choice ignores the region’s larger economic problems that limit people’s options in the first place.
“Elegy is little more than a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class,” Sarah Jones of the New Republic wrote in one typically scathing review.
Historian Elizabeth Catte’s “What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia” is a book-length rebuttal to Vance. When Vance spoke at a recent Appalachian studies conference Catte joined some audience members who turned their backs on him in protest.
Vance is taking the criticism in stride.
“I think people are justifiably a little weary of one guy serving as a representative of the region,” he said. “But I also think there are a lot of folks who do identify with what I wrote and what the book is about.”
“Patient Investment”
Others have concerns about whether the venture capital Vance now promotes is the right fit for the region he wrote about.
“This is a place where investors have shown up time and again and they took their rate of return on capital and they left behind a mess,” Dee Davis said. Davis founded the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Kentucky. He compares venture capitalists, with the high rate of return they often seek, to the extractive industries that pulled so much wealth from Appalachia’s landscapes and did great harm to communities.
He expressed doubts about whether the venture capital model fits with the culture and the long-term planning communities are now developing for a recovery after coal’s collapse.
“We’d love to have some thoughtful investment, some patient investment from people who understand what is really valuable here,” Davis said. “If you can find investors who appreciate who we are, then bring ‘em in.”
“What Now?”
One early investment by Vance’s Rise of the Rest fund could speak to some of the concerns Davis expressed. The company AppHarvest aims to build large hydroponic greenhouses on abandoned mine land in eastern Kentucky. AppHarvest founder Jonathan Webb told ReSource partner station WMMT that this sort of agriculture could be part of a sustainable recovery.
“Now is the time to re-imagine, reinvest and rebuild here. Like, what are we gonna do now?” he asked. “Hopefully, high-tech ag will be a small piece of that larger picture.”
AppHarvest has lofty goals to put damaged land to new use. But it has hit a snag. Webb said the uneven settlement of the disturbed mine site could make some of it unsuitable for construction.
It’s another example of how hard it could be for new investment to gain a solid footing in Appalachia’s hills.
Poet and political activist Don West died on September 29, 1992, at age 86. The Georgia native was also a preacher, labor organizer, and educator. He earned a doctor of divinity degree from Vanderbilt University, where he was influenced by the Social Gospel movement.
When he was in his 20s, West cofounded the Highlander Folk Center in Tennessee, which has been attended by many activists, including Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. In the 1950s, West was a non-cooperating witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Don West and his wife, Connie, first came to West Virginia in 1965 and established the Appalachian South Folklife Center at Pipestem in Summers County. At the center, he led summer camps for low-income youth and an annual mountain music festival. West stressed the importance of mountain heritage and spoke out against the ‘‘hillbilly’’ stereotype. A political radical, he felt the American economic system contributed to Appalachia’s poverty. He had a profound influence on progressive politics and culture in Appalachia until his retirement from the Folklife Center in the late 1980s.
He lived his final years at Cabin Creek in Kanawha County.
