The Appalachian Voice
News & Notes from the Organization
A Special Thanks to Mast Store and Patagonia Appalachian Voices would like to give special thanks to Mast General Store and Patagonia Footwear who joined forces to help support us this past September. For the entire month, the two companies donated a combined $10 for every pair of Patagonia shoes sold at Mast. Thank you…
Read MoreThe Coal Report
EPA Vetoes Spruce Mountaintop Removal Mine Permit By Jamie Goodman On January 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a veto of the largest proposed mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history. Arch Coal’s “Spruce Mine #1” permit would have impacted more than 2,000 acres and buried more than eight miles of streams in…
Read MoreEditorial and Viewpoint
Environmental News From Across the Region
Google Sees the Forests… and all the Trees! On December 2nd, Google Inc., announced an ambitious 21st century innovation to help protect and monitor the World’s precious forests. Via their Google Earth Engine, the company seeks to enable scientists and researchers around the world to study, track and clearly report their findings as to the…
Read MoreThe Heart of the Mountaintop Removal Movement
When Ollie “Widow” Combs laid down in front of a bulldozer that was preparing to strip-mine her Kentucky farm in 1965, it’s doubtful that she realized her actions to protect her land would grow into a movement. Today, women’s voices are among the loudest in the fight to protect not only personal land, but drinking…
Read MoreFollowing the Foothills Trail
By Jennifer Pharr Davis For this issue, we asked Jennifer Pharr Davis— long-distance hiking queen from Asheville, N.C.— to profile her favorite hike in Appalachia. Davis has hiked more than 9,000 miles, including the Appalachian Trail (twice!), the Pacific Crest Trail, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and the 600-mile Bibbulmun Track in Australia. In…
Read MoreTwo Women Working on Sustaina-Builda-bility
Chris McCurry of Highland Craftsmen, Inc. By Alli Marshall It was the old chestnut-bark siding that provided the inspiration. Though the chestnut blight has destroyed mature American chestnut trees, Chris McCurry wondered why the once-popular shingles couldn’t be duplicated in poplar. “We wanted to reintroduce something indigenous and match the culture; we wanted the buildings…
Read MoreProdigious Writers
Amazing Appalachian Authors The authors below represent a mix of both regionally and nationally renowned authors, but all grew up in Appalachia and were inspired to take from what they learned and saw. Stories about the people, places and lifestyles of Appalachia were shared with the world through the words of the women listed below.…
Read MoreCultural Legacy
Joy Lynn Getting the “Coal” Experience at Whipple Store By Jillian Randel Traveling down County Route 612 somewhere between Oak Hill and Scarbro, W.Va., you will find one of the oldest wooden coal camp company stores still in business- the Whipple Company Store nowadays operating to preserve mountain heritage. In 2006, Joy Lynn bought the…
Read MoreMountain Media
Ada Smith and the Stay Project Seeing Appalachia Not Just as Birthplace, but Home By Anna Oakes As a young adult, Ada Smith realized that few groups were focused on organizing youth in Appalachia—much fewer than in other regions. Smith, 23, is the daughter of two filmmakers who have worked with Appalshop, a multimedia arts…
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