This story was published by Charleston Gazette-Mail It wasn’t a particular incident that led the bishop of the state’s Episcopal churches to encourage its congregations to stock the overdose-reversing drug naloxone; Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer just hates what the opioid epidemic is doing to West Virginia. “I hate seeing young […]

This story was also published with West Virginia Public Broadcasting. An evangelical mountain town lost eight people to flooding from an extreme rain storm. Many residents see the Biblical prophecy of the apocalypse, and welcome it. Jake Dowdy is a police officer in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where he lived […]

Pundits are watching the Virginia governor’s race for signs of what might transpire in 2018 around the country. Neither Republican Gillespie nor Democrat Northam did well with rural voters in their primaries. But if the metropolitan voting is close, the margin of the Republican’s rural victory could help determine the […]

A new account challenges our notion of how the people of Appalachia “acquired civilization and then lost it.” This story was co-published with Washington Monthly. We are, one hears, spending too much time on Appalachia. There are too many dispatches from woebegone towns, coastal reporters parachuting in to ascertain that, […]

“Jobs aren’t a silver bullet,” says Coalfield Development Corporation CEO Brandon Dennison. But they are a good start. Dennison’s social enterprise has helped 100 percent of its first 30 graduates find employment or further their education. Now, it’s hoping to repeat that success with 50 employees. Meanwhile, the larger goal […]