In this edition of Mountain Talk: he may be retiring, but he’s still fired up— we start our show with a lively, feisty speech from longtime UMWA President Cecil Roberts, who stepped into that role back in 1995, and just retired last month, after 30 years. In this talk, which he gave this summer at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, Roberts, a WV native, reflects on the long and rich history of coal union organizing in Appalachia—including how his own great-grandparents were evicted from their Fayette County home, back in 1902, by a coal company, because they’d been suspected of supporting the union—and why he thinks, given the state of the country and the economy, the union is as important now as it’s ever been. Our thanks to the folks at the WV Mine Wars Museum for sharing the audio of this speech with us.
Then: November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, and, sadly, eastern Kentucky has higher rates of type 2 diabetes than both the state and national averages. But even if it runs in your family, diabetes *can* be managed, or even prevented in the first place. And for the second half of our show this week, as part of our ongoing series Prevent Diabetes EKY, we sit down with Allie Vogel, director of the Letcher County Public Library, to hear about both her challenges and her successes in her diabetes journey— including how she cut her A1C level plum in half. And as a quick PS, for more stories like this, of preventing and managing type 2 diabetes in eastern Kentucky, check out our project website: www.preventdiabeteseky.org.
(Music this week is by J.P. & Annadeene Fraley, from the June Appal Records release “Galleynipper,” and by Don Bikoff, from the Free Music Archive.)
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In this edition of Mountain Talk: he may be retiring, but he’s still fired up— we start our show with a lively, feisty speech from longtime UMWA President Cecil Roberts, who stepped into that role back in 1995, and just retired last month, after 30 years. In this talk, which he gave this summer at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, Roberts, a WV native, reflects on the long and rich history of coal union organizing in Appalachia—including how his own great-grandparents were evicted from their Fayette County home, back in 1902, by a coal company, because they’d been suspected of supporting the union—and why he thinks, given the state of the country and the economy, the union is as important now as it’s ever been. Our thanks to the folks at the WV Mine Wars Museum for sharing the audio of this speech with us.
Then: November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, and, sadly, eastern Kentucky has higher rates of type 2 diabetes than both the state and national averages. But even if it runs in your family, diabetes *can* be managed, or even prevented in the first place. And for the second half of our show this week, as part of our ongoing series Prevent Diabetes EKY, we sit down with Allie Vogel, director of the Letcher County Public Library, to hear about both her challenges and her successes in her diabetes journey— including how she cut her A1C level plum in half. And as a quick PS, for more stories like this, of preventing and managing type 2 diabetes in eastern Kentucky, check out our project website: www.preventdiabeteseky.org.
(Music this week is by J.P. & Annadeene Fraley, from the June Appal Records release “Galleynipper,” and by Don Bikoff, from the Free Music Archive.)
We lost a giant last month, when the great Gurney Norman passed on, at age 88. A native of Perry County, Kentucky, Gurney was maybe best-known as a singular, groundbreaking writer, especially as the author of the books Divine Right’s Trip, Kinfolks, and Allegiance. But he was also *so* many things, including a community arts organizer, a filmmaker, a longtime teacher at the University of Kentucky, and a mentor to a truly staggering number of young writers and artists all across the region.
He was also a longtime good friend, and co-conspirator, of ours here at Appalshop. And so, for this week’s show, we wanted to share a special part of his legacy with us here at the 'Shop: an amazing piece of work called Ancient Creek.
Originally released by our own June Appal Records as a spoken-word album back in 1976, Ancient Creek is a rollicking, one-of-a-kind folktale—read by Gurney himself, before a live audience—that exists within the greater Appalachian 'Jack Tale' tradition, but also blazes its own ground, in the way that only Gurney could. It tells the story of: King Condominium III; a mountainous hill region (which just so happens to sound a lot like Appalachia) that has suffered at the hands of the King; and, ultimately, the uncrushable spirit of a group of “upstart hillbillies" who decide to fight back.
And, in honor of Gurney, in this edition of Mountain Talk, we bring you—in full—Gurney's own reading of this truly special story. As a note: this version was drawn from the original LP release; Ancient Creek was also re-released on CD in 2012, and it’s also available in print from Ohio University Press.
(Music in today’s show was by John McCutcheon, from the June Appal Records release “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” and by Don Bikoff, from the Free Music Archive.)
WMMT Public Affairs & Podcasts
In this edition of Mountain Talk: he may be retiring, but he’s still fired up— we start our show with a lively, feisty speech from longtime UMWA President Cecil Roberts, who stepped into that role back in 1995, and just retired last month, after 30 years. In this talk, which he gave this summer at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, Roberts, a WV native, reflects on the long and rich history of coal union organizing in Appalachia—including how his own great-grandparents were evicted from their Fayette County home, back in 1902, by a coal company, because they’d been suspected of supporting the union—and why he thinks, given the state of the country and the economy, the union is as important now as it’s ever been. Our thanks to the folks at the WV Mine Wars Museum for sharing the audio of this speech with us.
Then: November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, and, sadly, eastern Kentucky has higher rates of type 2 diabetes than both the state and national averages. But even if it runs in your family, diabetes *can* be managed, or even prevented in the first place. And for the second half of our show this week, as part of our ongoing series Prevent Diabetes EKY, we sit down with Allie Vogel, director of the Letcher County Public Library, to hear about both her challenges and her successes in her diabetes journey— including how she cut her A1C level plum in half. And as a quick PS, for more stories like this, of preventing and managing type 2 diabetes in eastern Kentucky, check out our project website: www.preventdiabeteseky.org.
(Music this week is by J.P. & Annadeene Fraley, from the June Appal Records release “Galleynipper,” and by Don Bikoff, from the Free Music Archive.)
