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We look back at 2025. We met some fascinating people, like Aaron Dowdy of country rock band Fust.
Also, central Appalachia continued to recover from Hurricane Helene. From the beginning, the recovery brought people together.
And, we made a trip to Hillbilly Hotdog to take on “The Homewrecker.”
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In This Episode:
Songwriter Aaron Dowdy leads Fust, a group with deep Appalachian roots that’s based in Durham, North Carolina. Fust is part of a new wave of indie rock emerging from the Mountain South.
It’s distinguished by a Southern rock sound and lyrics drawn from observations about living in the region. Last year, host Mason Adams spoke with Dowdy after Fust released their album Big Ugly.
Michael Snyder is a photographer and filmmaker who grew up in the Allegheny mountains on the border of Maryland and West Virginia. His work has been featured in National Geographic, The Guardian and The Washington Post. After living away from Appalachia for more than a decade, Snyder moved back to document what changed and what stayed the same. The result was the book Alleghania: A Central Appalachian Folklore Anthology.
Associate producer Abby Neff spoke with Snyder.
It’s been more than a year since Hurricane Helene hit the mountains of Appalachia. The storm devastated parts of western North Carolina, East Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia. Communities are still rebuilding and recovering. Our partner station Radio IQ produced a documentary about how folks recovered and rebuilt after the storm. This is an excerpt from that special. Roxy Todd reported from southwestern Virginia.
This past year saw another appearance by Appalachia’s noisiest critters: cicadas. Across parts of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, Brood XIV emerged in late spring and early summer. Although some folks are annoyed by cicadas, others find profound meaning. Louisville Public Media’s Justin Hicks reported.
Hillbilly Hotdogs in Lesage, West Virginia is a local institution and a bona fide tourist attraction that sees visitors from all over the world. In 2024, the hotdog stand’s signature menu item, “The Homewrecker,” suddenly became unavailable. This summer, producer Bill Lynch paid a visit to Hillbilly Hotdogs to hear about the return of the homewrecker and take the homewrecker challenge.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Fust, Jeff Ellis, Paul Loomis, Frank George and Blue Dot Sessions.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Abby Neff is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
You can find us on Instagram, Threads or here on Facebook.
Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!
Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
This week, we take a look at how the U.S. government built a secret city in East Tennessee during World War II to work on the atomic bomb. Also, almost everybody has a favorite cup or coffee mug, but how far would you go to replace it? And, we hear from a cabinetmaker on the physicality of poetry.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News"Bombshell" is a new film from American Experience that explores how the government manipulated the public about the bomb’s development and deployment. Inside Appalachia’s Mason Adams spoke with author Greg Mitchell, who appears in the film.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsShannon Silverman, an astrophysicist at the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences in Charleston, West Virginia, guides us through the cosmos above the Mountain State.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsOver the past few years, catastrophic floods have washed out parts of Appalachia and devastated communities. A team of Washington Post journalists explored why Appalachia has been hit so hard by flooding in a story published late last year. Journalist Brady Dennis joins Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams to discuss their investigation.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News
