The Appalachian Voice
The Women of Appalachia: One of our most powerful natural resources
The Formidable, Fearless and Fantastic Women of Appalachia Story by Bill Kovarik Fearless women settled Appalachia – and are still fighting for it. Alongside men, they plowed fields, put up food, kept the family and faced conflict. Women like Mary Draper Ingles, taken hostage in 1755 by Shawnee Indians, who hiked 500 hundred miles of…
Read MoreHealth and Community
Minnie Vance Sixty Years of Open-Door Healthcare By Katherine Vance When I was asked to write a 500 word feature about my grandmother, Dr. Minnie Vance, I admit that I almost turned the assignment down. I was incredibly intimated. How could I possibly fit the story of her more than half a century’s work as…
Read MoreAmazing Affrilachians
Kelly Ellis | Helping Students Tell Their Stories By Jillian Randel
Read MoreMagnificent Cherokee
Marilou Awiakta | Writing Culture, Gender…Atoms By Jared Schultz “I am a Cherokee-Appalachian woman who grew up with the atom,” writer Marilou Awiakta stated as we discussed her work and mission as a poet, storyteller and essayist. The seventh generation of her family, Awiakta grew up in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a federal center for nuclear…
Read MoreHeroic Environmentalists
Ann Pickel Harris | Safety Is the Tie That Binds By Sarah Vig The truth will out, as Shakespeare says, and in Tennessee, Ann Harris is around to help it along. Harris, 71, has become something of a mentor for whistleblowers and a well-known source of information and guidance on nuclear and advocacy issues since…
Read MoreNew Coal Dust Regs Aimed at Black Lung Disease Resurgence
Story by Bill Kovarik An alarming rise in new cases of black lung disease inspired new Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations announced this fall by the Obama Administration. The new regulations come 15 years after occupational safety and disease control agencies recommended a tightening of standards. They also come seven years after the Bush…
Read MoreA Coal Miner’s Health
Short term gains and long term loss Story and photo by D.A. Hawkins Coal mining is dangerous work. Spend any length of time talking with a group of underground coal miners and you are sure to hear “war stories” about close calls with severe injury or even death. Every aspect of the job requires a…
Read MoreTwo years after the coal ash disaster: Class action lawsuits target TVA and others
Story by Bill Kovarik Lawsuits against the Tennessee Valley Authority are continuing in the wake of the coal ash disaster two years ago. Currently, 58 lawsuits against TVA have been consolidated into a class action suit alleging various health, economic and environmental damages from the collapse of a poorly-built dam and release of one billion…
Read MoreCoal Ash: One Woman’s Fight To Save A Community
Story by Jillian Randel Elisa Young walked to the front of the room, slammed down a jar of blackberry ginger crepe syrup and a ziploc bag of coal ash in front of the three Environmental Protection Agency government officials. “Think about the blackberries growing in the unlined coal ash ditches of Meigs County when you…
Read MoreCombating A Culture of Substance Abuse in Appalachia
Story by Jared Schultz At the Grandfather Home for Children in Watauga County, N.C., evidence of the devastation that addiction can wreak on families and communities resides in the residents, some as young as infants. One baby, less than a year old, went through a multi-week detox process when he first arrived—his mother had shared…
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