Hidden Valley Wildlife Management Area

by Richard Kretz Richard Kretz is a regionally-acclaimed naturalist and photographer whose digital images capture the vibrant beauty and diversity of nature. His life project is to photographically document as much of the flora and fauna as possible in far Southwest Virginia. He resides at the foot of Clinch Mountain near Lebanon in Russell County, […]

Appalachian College of Pharmacy: Tackling Economic and Health Care Challenges

by Dr. Lu Ellsworth This is Part 3, covering the impact of The Appalachian College of Pharmacy on our region. You can also read parts 1 and 2, discussingUVA-Wise and the Appalachian School of Law. As the Appalachian School of Law began to recover from the wrenching shooting tragedy on its campus on January 16, 2002, coalfield leaders discussed ways to further […]

Scottish Roots

Like many Appalachian descendants, especially those from Southwest Virginia several generations back, we can generally find that at least a portion of our lineage came directly or indirectly through Scotland. Obviously there are many exceptions, particularly the Mediterranean and Eastern European immigrants that emigrated to the coalfields in droves during the early 1900s coal mining booms. Numerous scholars say that coalfield Appalachia was third only to New York City and San Francisco for the diversity of nationalities present at that time. The census in Wise County during that “black gold” boom of a nearly century ago documented over two dozen nationalities, with Hungarians being the predominant group from Eastern Europe. Similarly, West Virginia had, and still has, a big contingent of residents bearing Slavic surnames from those days. African Americans seeking an alternative to southern sharecropping also played a significant role in coalfield diversity.