Amelia Kirby and Carl Shoupe in the WMMT studio

2013-04-10 – Mountain Talk – Appalachia’s Bright Future

Give a listen to the April 10th edition of WMMT’s Mountain Talk for a discussion on east Kentucky’s economic future.  As more and more reports show a sharp decline in Appalachian coal production, host Mimi Pickering brings special guests on-air for a critical discussion centered on the question ‘What comes next?’  Pickering speaks with local leaders Carl Shoupe, Amelia Kirby and Tim Belcher about their work to create new opportunities in our area, as well as special guest Noah Enelow from the Pacific Northwest who offers insight on what we can learn from other regions that have undergone an economic transition.

The guests on this show will all be featured presenters at Appalachia’s Bright Future, an upcoming three-day conference in Harlan, April 19-21.  The gathering will bring together a diverse group of leaders and citizens working to build a new economy here in the mountains.

Also, check out this piece by Hazard, Ky.-based TV station WYMT that spotlighted this broadcast!  They filmed the program as it happened and pull short clips from the discussion for their piece.

To stream the program audio, click play above.  To download it, right click the title of the audio and select “save link as…”.  For more installments of WMMT’s Mountain Talk, check out our streaming archive.

2013-03-13 Appalachia Funders Network

In this edition of WMMT’s Mountain Talk, we hear about the efforts of the Appalachia Funders Network, a group of public and private grant-makers committed to speeding the development of a diversified Appalachian economy that is based on assets within the region.  Our guests in this program include:

• Ray Daffner, Entrepreneurship Initiative Manager at the Appalachian Regional Commission, who speaks about why the Network is looking at entrepreneurial-based local and regional efforts as the path to diversifying the Appalachian economy, and some of the exciting partnerships that are coming out of this collaboration;
• Sandra Mikush, Deputy Director of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, who joins us to discuss the goals of the Appalachian Funders Network and Startup Appalachia, a new effort linking public and private partners to increase support for the growth of entrepreneurial enterprises in the region; and
• Gerry Roll, Executive Director of the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, who joins us to talk about efforts underway throughout the region to tap local wealth for long-term reinvestment in our communities.

This edition of Mountain Talk is part of Making Connections: Diversifying Our Future, a storybank for sharing news, ideas, and information for building a healthy future in Appalachia. Making Connections is made possible by the Blue Moon fund, the Open Society Foundation, the Media Democracy Fund, WMMT listeners, and Appalshop.

Mountain Talk 1.9.13: John Cheves

Harry Caudill in 1983 // photo from the Lexington Herald-Leader

In this extra-special edition of WMMT’s Mountain Talk, we welcome John Cheeves to the program to discuss the legacy of Letcher County author Harry Caudill on the 50th anniversary of his watershed book Night Comes to the Cumberlands.  Cheeves is co-author of a 5-part series on Caudill that ran recently in the Lexington Herald-Leader to mark the anniversary, and in this program he sits down with host Rich Kirby for an hour of discussion, stories, remembrances, and analysis of Caudill’s life, work, and beliefs, in addition to an examination of how Appalachia–the region to which Caudill brought so much national attention–has changed since Night  was first published in 1963.  Kirby & Cheeves also take listener phone calls in the second half of the program.

To stream the program, push play above.  To download, right click the text of the audio title and click “Save link as..”.