The trip from the mountains to Frankfort can be difficult, but the KFTC van ride on I Love Mountains Day was one we will tell big tales about for years. Harlan “Tootie” Seals has been driving charter buses and vans for decades and even served a term as mayor of Fleming-Neon. So I was looking forward to an adventure. Little did I know…
It was cold and dark in Whitesburg when we met at 6:00 in the morning. The road to Cumberland that crosses Pine Mountain is difficult. When Tootie’s van crossed the mountain, I figured the rest of the trip would be downhill, no problem. KFTC friends from Lynch, Benham, and Cumberland met us on the south side of the mountain as the sun was rising. On to Harlan, where the rest of our van riders joined us, then we headed for Frankfort.
During this short 2015 Legislative Session, it can be difficult for many Kentuckians to make the trip to Frankfort and share their good sense with lawmakers. That’s why members of the Harlan, Letcher and Big Sandy KFTC chapters spent time this February writing to their senators, representatives and key leaders of both chambers. More than 50 cards, letters and postcards are on their way to more than two dozen lawmakers in Frankfort! Some were even hand delivered to House members during the Clean Energy Lobby Day late last week.
The budget proposed by President Obama today calls for significant new investments in economic transition in Central Appalachia. The President's ideas for the region are being called the "Power + Plan."
Among the highlights of the President's plan are the following:
$1 billion over five years to restore lands and waters degraded by decades-old mining and support related sustainable development projects.
$56 million to invest in job training for laid-off miners and to support economic development efforts in Central Appalachian mining communities. This figure includes an additional $20 million in job training for miners and power plant workers; an increase of $25 million for the Appalachian Regional Commission's annual budget, to be directed at "communities most impracted by coal economic transition"; $6 million more to the Department of Commerce for "place-based regional innovation efforts," including grants to economically distressed communities; and $5 million more for the EPA's brownfields program to help communities deal with the closure of coal-fired power plants.
$3.9 billion over 10 years to shore up health and retirement benefits for many retired miners.
KFTC members are encouraged to register and attend for the 2015 Strategy Summit of the Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) initiative. The initiative was established by Gov. Steve Beshear and Rep. Hal Rogers in 2013. It’s mission is ”to expand job creation, enhance regional opportunity, innovation, and identity,improve the quality of life, and support all those working to achieve these goals in Appalachian Kentucky.”
Food service workers at Morehead State University will be voting Wednesday on whether to be represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
This is a Movement moment. Whose moment is it? Like any of the risings of the past, there are people trying to claim the moment. But you can’t own a moment, hold it within your hands like a flut
Daymon Morgan, one of KFTC’s longest and best-known members, has died. He was 88 and had experienced a brief illness.
Daymon joined KFTC shortly after moving back to Kentucky in 1986. As he described in the book Making History: The First Ten Years of KFTC:
"I went into the Army when I was 18 year old. When I came out of the Army I bought a mountain farm in Leslie County. I moved to Ohio and worked for the Chrysler Corporation until 1986. We moved back to the farm. I bought a portable sawmill, a horse and some Mountain Cur hunting dogs. I spent most of my time cutting timber, sawing lumber, hunting with my dogs, farming and working with KFTC."
Daymon also found that a coal company was claiming the mineral under his land.
Back-to-back decisions by grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City not to press charges against police officers who killed Mike Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed black men, have sparked massive protests, along with heartache, anger, and calls for accountability and change in communities across Kentucky and the nation. The injustices exposed by these recent cases are sadly not new, and neither is the movement that is growing in response to them. However, recent events have created a moment filled with a sense of urgency, energy and determination.
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