Wine, Our Song Of The Week And An Update On Vaccine Rollout This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Corps brings us a story of Italian immigrants and their descendants in North Carolina who have carried on the tradition of making wine. Also, we have the latest news on the coronavirus vaccine in West Virginia, and we listen to this week’s Mountain Stage Song of the Week.

West Virginia health officials will rollout a new online system for taking COVID-19 vaccination appointments starting Monday. As June Leffler reports, this is meant to curb lengthy call wait times.

Many of Appalachia’s folkways can be traced back hundreds, even thousands of years. Even to other countries. Last September, reporter Rebecca Williams found a slice of Italy in North Carolina. She introduces us to members of the Bocce Club in Valdese, North Carolina. A few dozen Italian immigrants settled in Valdese back in the 1890s. They built communal bread baking ovens, they made a special type of sausage, and they made wine.

Kentucky-bred Americana superstar Tyler Childers cut his teeth as a singer-songwriter by playing open-mic nights in Huntington, West Virginia. His rise to prominence across the nation and the world carved a path through much of West Virginia and elsewhere in the heart of Appalachia. Here’s Childers from a December 2019 performance on Mountain Stage with our Song of the Week, “Nose On The Grindstone.”

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 West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.

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

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Glynis Board, Caitlin Tan, Jessica Lilly, Liz McCormick, Eric Douglas, Emily Allen, June Leffler, Duncan Slade and Roxy Todd.

Andrea Billups is our news director. Dave Mistich is our 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