West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s news team has earned three awards in the Radio Television Digital News Association’s 2020 Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.
WVPB’s News Team won regional awards in the Region 8, Small Market Radio Division, competing with news agencies from throughout Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. WVPB won the following categories:
Continuing Coverage:Blackjewel Coal Miners Stop Trains by Brittany Patterson, WVPB Energy and Environment Reporter, and Sydney Boles, Ohio Valley ReSource Reporter
Executive Director Chuck Roberts said the WVPB news team is committed to excellence in journalism. “The work we do to bring people the important stories of Appalachia — from strikes in the energy industry, to folkways stories and to stories about the struggles of working mothers — deserves recognition,” Roberts said. “Although we don’t do what we do to win awards, we are honored to have earned three Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.
“I am proud of the work that Brittany, Caitlin, and the Inside Appalachia team did to bring these award-winning stories to the world,” Roberts said.
Regional winners proceed to the national round of the competition.
RTDNA has been honoring outstanding achievements in journalism with these awards since 1971. Award recipients demonstrate the spirit of excellence that Murrow set as a standard for the profession of electronic journalism.
Author Bonnie Proudfoot began working on her new novel “Goshen Road” nearly 25 years ago, but she said she had to get older before she had the confidence to finish it. The story follows two sisters growing up in northern West Virginia, beginning as teens in 1967.
She described the book as women-centered Appalachian fiction, although she was quick to point out that not every chapter was told from a woman’s point of view.
She explained the book is told in “linked narratives” meaning that each individual chapter could almost stand alone as a short story, but the same characters are in each chapter.
“Really at the heart of it is the story of two women who come to terms with who they really are. And they can look the world squarely in the eyes on their own terms. But they needed to go through a lot,” Proudfoot said.
She added that what she wanted to convey to the reader was how much family means, how much the land itself means and how much the two rely on each other, both in good and bad times.
While she tries to leave it vague, the book is set in a fictional town and county, in north central West Virginia. She said a lot of people ask her if it is set in Fairmont, and she replies, “No, it is smaller.”
Another familiar reference for readers, and people who drive Interstate 79, is in the name of the book — Goshen Road. It is an exit between Clarksburg and Morgantown, West Virginia.
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Proudfoot said when she started writing the book, the title ‘Goshen Road’ was a given, both for its local reference and to the Land of Goshen from the Old Testament.
She said her characters were “so tied to place and the place itself figures largely in the book.” Adding that it is “kind of a spiritual force.”
The promotional materials for the book describe it as “elegiac” meaning pertaining to an “elegy.” The book itself covers the lives of the characters from 1967 to 1992.
“This harks back to the past when there was still a vestige of cultural inheritance. People did canning. They went hunting, they knew how to make some form of living off of the land and not everything was material,” Proudfoot said. “They traded for things. It’s an elegy a little bit in that regard. Things have gotten harder, economically speaking, since that novel.”
“Goshen Road” is Proudfoot’s debut novel and it is available through the Ohio University Press. She is a fiction writer, a poet and a glass artist.
This interview is part of an occasional series of Appalachian Author Interviews with authors from, or writing about, the region.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In response to the economic crisis resulting from COVID-19, West Virginia Public Broadcasting has offered a series of free radio announcements to independent and locally owned restaurants and small businesses that are still open and following social distancing guidelines during the pandemic.
More than 40 small business responded. Each business that met the criteria received a three-week rotation of underwriting spots on the statewide WVPB radio network. Most are still playing in rotation.
“Because the Mountain State has a multitude of small businesses, we know the struggle is immense for these companies and their employees,” said Jane Wright, Director of Grants and Underwriting. “We simply want to help them, and we are able to do it in the spirit of all that public broadcasting represents — service to our state.”
While working with current underwriters whose businesses were closed or organizations whose events were canceled, the underwriting team became inspired to help other struggling businesses that aren’t affiliated with WVPB yet. Two waves of selections followed, the first focused on locally owned restaurants and the second targeted the broader classification of small businesses.
“As with all of our underwriters — new or current — we hope that our loyal WVPB fans will support these businesses both during this uncertain time and when we get back to business as usual,” Wright said.
The first wave was open to locally owned restaurants offering take-out or delivery meals and included:
Guesthouse Lost River, Lost River
Swiftwater Catering, Charleston
Nomada Bakery, Huntington
Pies and Pints, Fayetteville, Charleston, Morgantown
Southside Junction Tap House, Fayetteville
Appalachian Tea, Charleston
Sargasso of Morgantown, Morgantown
Ristorante Abruzzi, Charleston
Tacoholix, Wheeling
daVinci’s Italian Restaurant, Williamstown
Duckie’s Bar and Grill, Piedmont
The Candlewyck Inn, Keyser
Starlings Coffee and Provisions, Charleston
Bluegrass Kitchen, Charleston
Stella’s Gelato and Specialty Market, Charleston
Terra Cafe, Morgantown
The second wave was open to any small business, including locally owned restaurants and included:
Hill and Hollow, Morgantown
Talking Across the Lines, Elkins
Joey’s Bike Shop, Elkins
Mountaineer Technology Consultants, Morgantown
Two Rivers Treads, Ranson
Cheerful Heart Catering, Charleston
Kanawha Valley Veterinary Emergency Hospital, South Charleston
Wood Iron Eatery, Fayetteville
Edith’s Specialty Store, Lewisburg
Coal River Coffee, St Albans
Full Circle Gifts and Goods, Huntington
Darnold and Lyons Heating, Cooling and Plumbing, South Charleston
Girls Rock Whitesburg in Whitesburg, Kentucky is a music camp for female, gender-fluid, non-binary, and trans youth. Over the course of a week campers learn an electric instrument, form a band and write songs. At the end, they perform in front of a live audience. While the camp focuses on electric music instruction, participants also learn how music is tied to social justice.
Last summer, in a special report as part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project, Nicole Musgrave followed two campers who reinvented a traditional protest song to respond to events in their community. In 2018, Musgrave volunteered at the camp during its inaugural year.
Voicing Opinions Through Music
It was the second day of camp, and one of the newly-formed bands was experimenting with playing the song “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads. The drummer of the band was 18-year-old Sheyanna Gladson of Cumberland, Kentucky.
“I wanted to play music for a really long time … because I go to a lot of shows but I never played. Even though I obviously wanted to,” Gladson explained.
Her bandmate was 17-year-old Adeline Allison of Harlan, Kentucky. “I’ve always been drawn to music, but I’ve only played music with men. Which is fine. But I’ve never really met any other women who play music before,” Allison said.
Credit Nicole Musgrave / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Adeline Allison (left) and Larah Helayne during band practice. They were two of several campers who returned for the second annual Girls Rock Whitesburg.
Girls Rock Whitesburg launched in the summer of 2018, part of an international network that supports camps like this all over the world. This was Gladson and Allison’s second year at camp. They both said last summer was empowering.
“I was able to find some confidence musically and personally,” Allison explained.
“We don’t realize how much of a necessity that is to have confidence in ourselves. That’s not conceited, that’s not bad to love yourself, you know?” Gladson said.
Gladson, Allison and their third bandmate Larah Helayne were all camp interns in 2019, so they decided to call their band The Interns. Together, they wrote the camp’s theme song, which features lyrics that declare, “I take up space and use my voice. I’m not afraid to make loud noise.”
“It’s just such an important part for all these young girls to remember. Because so many girls feel like they don’t have room to talk. Or even if they do, no one’s going to value their opinion. But that’s not true at all,” Gladson said.
Credit Nicole Musgrave / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A motivational poster decorates the Boone Building in downtown Whitesburg, Kentucky where most of the Girls Rock activity takes place.
Voicing opinions, especially on social issues, is a big part of what Girls Rock Whitesburg is about. In addition to music instruction, campers participated in workshops on topics like sex ed and anti-oppression, and they discussed difficulties in their personal lives and conflicts happening in the world.
Credit Nicole Musgrave / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The camp schedule posted on the wall shows activities that include instrument instruction, sex ed, meditation, and an anti-oppression workshop.
This past year, some campers wrote songs about their experiences with bullying and sexism. In 2018, Gladson and her band wrote a song called “Melt the ICE,” to speak out against Immigration & Customs Enforcement detaining migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border. In the song, Gladson wails, “Claustrophobic. There is no space. If it was your kid, then what would you say?”
Kudzu Punks
Girls Rock Whitesburg is part of a long Appalachian tradition of protest music written by women—women like Florence Reece. In the 1930s, Reece penned the well-known protest song “Which Side Are You On?” as a response to the bloody labor struggles she witnessed in her home in Harlan County. During the 1930s when Reece wrote it, other female activists in eastern Kentucky were also using music to speak out against injustices in their communities. In the song, an unaccompanied Reece condemns coal operators and law enforcement, and calls on miners to organize.
On the surface, songs like “Which Side Are You On?” that draw on the ballad and old-time music traditions might not seem to have much in common with the punk tradition that many Girls Rock campers and organizers draw from. But there is more in common than meets the eye. The common thread is dissent.
At Girls Rock Whitesburg, the traditions mix and meld. Organizer and music instructor Mitchella Phipps even has a name for it.
“I just like to call us kudzu punks … Whether it’s a fiddle or whether it’s an electric guitar, it’s kind of that same thing. We’re telling stories and we’re expressing things that happened to us in creative ways,” Phipps said.
Another instructor Carrie Carter explained the overlap between the past and present. “A lot of what happens in old-time music in the 1800s and early 1900s is fighting against oppression and fighting ‘The Man’ and fighting systemic issues,” Carter said.
Gladson said she hears similar strains in the music she and Allison are learning to play at Girls Rock. “Punk music’s just kinda saying what you feel and what you think should be said. Just expressing yourself. And you can do that where they can definitely hear you because you’re so loud, you know?”
Music Meets Activism
Following in the path of Florence Reece, the Girls Rock campers are learning the connection between music and activism. When it came time for The Interns to choose a song to cover during their final camp performance, they chose “Which Side Are You On?”
Gladson said they chose “the old song about the miners in Harlan. Just because of what’s happening right now.”
“My dad was playing that song when he was driving me home yesterday. We passed the protesters in Harlan. The miners who are protesting on the tracks in Cumberland. I’ve always loved the song.…So it’s kind of cool to see it be relevant again,” Allison explained.
Credit Lou Murrey
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Larah Helayne (left) wears a Girls Rock Whitesburg shirt while holding a banjo and a protest sign at the Blackjewel blockade in Cumberland, Kentucky. Helayne and several other Girls Rock campers visited the blockade to show support for the protesting miners and their families.
Which Side Are You On?
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All of the Girls Rock campers join The Interns on the Mountain Heritage Stage in Whitesburg, Kentucky for a group performance of the camp theme song.
On The Interns’ final day of camp, a crowd gathered on a grassy hillside for the band’s final performance. The Interns played the camp theme song they wrote, along with a cover of the song “I Wanna be your Girlfriend” by Girl in Red. They closed their set with a performance of “Which Side Are you On?”
Along with electric guitar, drums, and bass, The Interns added fiddle and banjo to their version as a nod to the song’s place in old-time music repertoires. Girls Rock organizers and instructors Mitchella Phipps and Carrie Carter accompanied the band.
Once everybody tuned their instruments and found their place on stage, The Interns bandmember Larah Helayne introduced the song with words of support for the Blackjewel mining families: “Support miners. Support people over profits. Support these mountains. It is a place worth fighting for and not just a place worth leaving. So this one is called “Which Side Are You On?”
Credit Paulina Vazquez
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Larah Helayne, Adeline Allison, Mitchella Phipps, and Carrie Carter prepare to play their version of “Which Side Are You On?” Along with playing electric instruments, many of the Girls Rock campers and instructors are also old-time musicians.
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. 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.
Just outside Fayetteville, West Virginia, there’s a 42-acre farm that has just about everything — chickens, lambs, sheep, produce and dogs. The latest addition is a litter of Great Pyrenees puppies, who will become guardian dogs for the sheep.
Christine Weirick owns and operates Deep Mountain Farm with her husband Chris Jackson and their two young daughters.
The couple has been operating Deep Mountain Farm for four years now. They live mostly off what they produce, putting them in a unique position during the pandemic, where leaving the house, even for necessities, is not encouraged.
And they are not alone – West Virginia has 23,000 farms, mostly family-owned, that survive off what they produce, according to Farm Flavor. In fact, a lot of West Virginians who are not even farmers, have started returning to practices like sewing, gardening and baking.
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The Great Pyrenees puppies born on the farm in early April. They will grow up to be working farm dogs.
Activities like that are just a day in the life of Chris and Christine, although they have less help than usual because of the pandemic. Christine said they typically hire on a couple of helpers through the WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms network, or “WWOOFers,” which draws people from all across the world willing to exchange labor for food and housing and knowledge of Appalachian farming.
“A lot of people come here wanting to learn how to butcher a chicken. So I always make sure that we have a chance to learn that skill,” Christine said. “But I also do it so that I can expose people to Appalachia, and they can have a positive experience.”
So without volunteers this year, she said the farm work, which does not stop for a pandemic, is going to be much more extensive.
Deep Mountain Farm is a regenerative farming operation, meaning they work the land with an eye toward improving and enriching the soil. Practices include everything from using cover crops rather than tilling the land, not using pesticides and livestock grazing rotation.
Chris and Christine both grew up in Kanawha County, with limited knowledge on farming, so much of what they have learned has been in their adult life. In fact, Christine volunteered as a WWOOFer in the Eastern Panhandle.
“We’ve ended up crossing paths with really incredible people who are very enthusiastic about sharing everything they know. And that’s just the only way this stuff’s going to get preserved,” Christine said.
She said the rich traditions and knowledge of old farming practices, and the willingness to share it with a younger generation, is what makes farming in West Virginia unique.
One practice Christine learned was how to grow a full garden — one that a family can live off of and then some — and also, how to can vegetables and fruit to eat in the off-season, a common practice on early farms in Appalachia.
And this year, Christine said they are growing a garden larger than ever before.
“I had like 400 kale plants and was like, ‘This is way too much.’”
Their hope is to have leftover produce to sell to those trying to social distance and stay away from grocery stores — and to donate some to homeless shelters. Christine usually cans with her mother, her grandmother and her aunts.
“We fill the house with people and jars and pots of food boiling away, and now it’s just going to be me,” she said. “I won’t be able to put up as much food as we usually do. So, I feel obligated almost, to make sure that the food ends up in the hands of people who really need it.”
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Christine home makes soap out of leftover lard. She is a big supporter of the benefits of lard.
Christine also makes 100 percent lard soap, sometimes with a splash of raw milk from the cow. She is a firm believer in using all parts of an animal.
“I have probably like 150 pounds of fat in my freezer right now because people don’t know what to do with it, which is a shame because it’s really easy to render lard and then you don’t need to buy any oils from the store,” she said. “It’s really good for you, like full of vitamin D, it’s really good for your skin — I could go on forever about lard.”
Another good use for lard is lots and lots of pies, Christine said.
When the the pandemic is less of a threat, she said she hopes to celebrate with a large cookout with fellow farmers and people who have been purchasing their goods, helping them keep afloat during these uncertain times.
This story is part of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Southern Coalfields Reporting Project which is supported by a grant from the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
West Virginia has received two federal grants to help with infrastructure and workforce projects in the state.
More than $2 million was awarded to Workforce West Virginia through the National Dislocated Worker Grant for programs to help out-of-work coal miners.
This grant comes at a time when unemployment claims in West Virginia are 18 times higher than normal. According to a press release, the money will help 192 West Virginia coal workers and employers through dislocated worker training and employment programs.
The state has received more than $15 million total through the grant since 2012 to help offset an increase in coal industry layoffs.
West Virginia received a separate grant of nearly $10 million from the Federal Aviation Administration. The money is part of the recent CARES act passed by Congress in response to the ongoing pandemic.
The grant will help 23 West Virginia airports that have lost money during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Yeager Charleston Airport will receive over half of the $10 million, with smaller airports in the state receiving between $20,000 and $30,000.
