For nearly a century, the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival has staged a formal dance. Organizers rely on a manual that’s been passed down for generations.

Also, abortion is illegal in most cases in Tennessee. So, what happens after a birth? A photographer followed one mother for a year. 

And, new prisons are touted as a way to bring jobs to former coal communities. Not everybody agrees the trade-off is worth it.

You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

In This Episode:

• The Tradition Of The Grand March





• Indian Creek Water Worries Residents





• Stacy Kranitz And “A Year After A Denied Abortion”





• Appalachian Rekindling Project Halts Prison Construction On Strip Mine





• Appalachian Prison Book Project





• Memories Of Family And Loss With Burn Poet Sarah Henning

The Tradition Of The Grand March

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Paige Smith, the 2023 Mountain Laurel Festival queen, gets crowned by Gov. Andy Beshear while the previous year’s queen looks on.

Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting</figcaption></figure>

The Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival is the oldest festival in the state of Kentucky, and it happens Memorial Day weekend. 

It’s a four-day celebration culminating in “The Grand March,” a traditional dance that has been passed down since the first festival in 1931.

Folkways Reporter Will Warren, a Pineville native, went to the festival over Memorial Day weekend in 2023 and brought us the story.

Indian Creek Water Worries Residents 

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">One of the three places along the creek where water started sprouting out, and with it a white stringy slime.

Photo Courtesy of David Stover</figcaption></figure>

Residents of Wyoming County, West Virginia, say their drinking water is making people sick. But it’s unclear exactly why — and who’s responsible for fixing the problem.

State regulators say water from a nearby mining complex is flowing into the creek, but who owns the mine and who is responsible for cleaning up the toxic water?

WVPB’s Briana Heaney reports.

Stacy Kranitz And “A Year After A Denied Abortion”

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Mayron Michelle Hollis with one of her children.

Photo Credit: Stacy Krantiz/ProPublica</figcaption></figure>

Tennessee photographer Stacy Kranitz acknowledges the complicated history of people taking pictures of poor Appalachians, often focusing on the harsher, ugly elements that reinforce stereotypes. She actively wrestles with it in her work. 

Host Mason Adams spoke with Kranitz about her work documenting the lives of a young family last year called “The Year After a Denied Abortion.” 

Appalachian Rekindling Project Halts Prison Construction On Strip Mine

Central Appalachia is home to 16 federal and state prisons. And building the prisons in that region was based partly on the idea of replacing lost jobs in coal country. Some of them were even built on the site of former surface mines. 

Now, federal officials are considering adding a new prison in Letcher County, Kentucky. The area’s U.S. Representative, Hal Rogers, firmly supports the project.

But as the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting’s Jared Bennett tells us, the project is also drawing opposition, both from locals and from activists around the country.

Appalachian Prison Book Project

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Stacks of books sit waiting to be sent to incarcerated people in the offices of the Appalachian Prison Book Project on the second floor of the Aull Center in downtown Morgantown April 27, 2024.

Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting</figcaption></figure>

For incarcerated people, books can provide crucial information to navigate the justice system, educate themselves and develop plans to reenter society. But people in prison have limited access to books. The Appalachian Prison Book Project is trying to change that.

WVPB’s Jack Walker reports.

Memories Of Family And Loss With Burn Poet Sarah Henning

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sara Henning's latest book of poetry is Burn.

Photo Courtesy of Sara Henning</figcaption></figure>

In her new book Burn, Marshall University professor and poet Sara Henning draws on her complicated family history and rough upbringing to explore young love, loss and the weight of grief.

Producer Bill Lynch spoke with her.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Hello June, John Inghram, Jeff Ellis, Erik Vincent Huey and John Blissard.

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