The Rural Blog

Issues, trends, events, ideas and journalism from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

Monday, Feb. 28, 2005

Journalists challenged to help improve health in Central Appalachia

More than 50 journalists, health-care professionals and interested citizens from Appalachian states shared ideas about the region's health, and how to cover and improve it, on Friday in Hazard, Ky., at a conference sponsored by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

The institute's director and the health professionals challenged the region's news outlets to devote more attention to medical issues in one of the least healthy regions of the nation. "The news media in Appalachia could play a key role in improving the region's health. But all too often, most of the health care information some outlets carry is advertising from providers looking for patients," interim director Al Cross said.

The University of Kentucky Center for Rural Health hosted the gathering. Its director, Judy Jones Owens, told the audience, "Rural communities are very dependent on the local news media to act as their advocates. It's imperative in this age that someone provide a voice for people living in these rural communities. Reporters really should be that voice."

Roger Alford of The Associated Press interviewed Cross and Pat Lay, publisher of the Harlan (Ky.) Daily Enterprise, which had a reporter at the conference. Lay told Alford that newspapers in the region recognize the importance of educating the public about health issues, and that some devote sections to health and medical news. She said her newspaper routinely runs columns on health issues written by physicians. Lay said schools also play a key role in educating children about healthy lifestyles, and that health care organizations also need to step up their efforts to reach adults. Lay said, "I think we're a partner in helping educate residents, but we are only one of many partners."

Wayne Myers, former head of the U.S. Office of Rural Health Policy, told the conference that poverty crosses all racial and ethnic bounds in central Appalachia and is at the root of its health problems. He said the region's health care is no worse than anywhere else, but he and others noted that its cancer-death rates among people 35 to 64 are disproportionately higher, reflecting a shortage of screening -- which Cross said could be addressed by feature stories about cancer victims who survived because they were screened.

Cross also suggested that newspapers play up health-oriented news, citing a front-page story and editorial from the Greenup County (Ky.) News-Times about an anti-obesity grant to the local schools. He also suggested that newspapers could use their ability to "sample copy" every household in their counties to reach non-subscribers with health information, and cover the cost with ads from health-care providers.

A more detailed report on the conference appears here.

Bill Gates urges restructuring high schools; governors seek tougher standards

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates told the nation's governors and leaders of the educational community that U. S. high schools are obsolete and need radical restructuring to raise graduation rates, prepare students for college and train a workforce that faces growing competition in the global economy. Governors of states with more than one-third of the nation's students said they are forming a coalition to improve high schools by adopting higher standards, more rigorous courses and tougher examinations.

Gates said, "Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of this century, we will keep limiting, even ruining, the lives of millions of Americans every year," writes Dan Balz of The Washington Post. Gates was the keynoter for a two-day education summit linked to the National Governors Association meeting in Washington. It highlighted the problem of dropout rates among high school students and the schools' failure to give students adequate preparation for college, and to developing an agenda for action in the states.

Gates put his money where his mouth was. He offered $15 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- which already helps hundreds of high schools -- to help states improve high schools. Five other foundations made offers, for a total of $23 million. Gates and others cited alarming statistics to back up their argument that high schools are failing students, particularly low-income or minority children.

The U.S. is16th among 20 developed nations in the percentage of students who complete high school and 14th among the top 20 in college graduation rates, writes Balz. Just 18 of 100 students entering high school go on to complete their college degree within six years, and the nation has slipped from first to fifth internationally in the percentage of young people who hold a college degree. Math and science education poses a particular challenge, with most American students gradually slipping behind the rest of the world.

The message sent by the governors was that "Unless the nation takes drastic measures on high schools, the United States will lose its competitive position in the world economy," writes Robert Pear of The New York Times. The 13 states in the coalition to improve high schools are are Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas. Other states are expected to join in the next few weeks.

Oregon property-rights law spurring conflict with anti-sprawl forces

Oregon’s new property-rights law, approved as Measure 37 by voters last fall, is creating a paradox for the state as it sets out on the cutting edge of controlling urban sprawl, reports The Washington Post.

The law says the government must pay cash to longtime property owners when land-use restrictions reduce their property value, writes Blaine Harden. If the government can’t pay, the owners are allowed to develop their property as they wish. But there is little or no money to pay landowners, so the law collides with smart-growth laws that have defined living patterns, land prices, and protected the state’s open spaces.

Dale Riddle, vice president for legal affairs at Seneca Jones Timber Co., the largest donor to the campaign for Measure 37, told the paper, "If you are going to restrict what someone can do with his land, then you have to pay for it.”

Land-use restrictions triggered a nationwide backlash in the early 1990s when Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi passed property-rights laws to protect owners from monetary losses from zoning. A nearly identical bill to the Oregon law has been introduced in the Montana legislature, and Washington is working to put a similar initiative on its ballot.

Mountain goes to Muhammad? No, Mt. Sinai goes to the Supreme Court

The deeply contentious debate over government-sponsored displays of The Ten Commandments, which Exodus says were given to Moses on Mount Sinai millennia ago, reaches the summit of the nation’s legal system this week – The U. S. Supreme Court.

In cases to be argued on Wednesday, involving two rural counties in Kentucky and the Texas state government, the basic question for the justices will be: What does it mean for the government to display a copy of the Ten Commandments? So writes Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times, adding:

"To those who seek removal of the displays -- a six-foot red granite monument that has sat since 1961 on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, and framed copies of the Ten Commandments that were hung five years ago on the walls of two Kentucky courthouses - the meaning is as obvious as it is impermissibly sectarian."

Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke University Law School wrote in his brief for Thomas Van Orden, an Austin resident who has so far been unsuccessful in his challenge to the Texas monument, "There is no secular purpose in placing on government property a monument declaring 'I am the Lord thy God.' " The Texas display is one of thousands placed around the country in the 1950's and 1960's by the Fraternal Order of Eagles with the support of Cecil B. DeMille, the director the movie, "The Ten Commandments."

Douglas Laycock, a professor and associate dean at the University of Texas School of Law, said in a discussion of the cases Thursday sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, "The government is not supposed to be for religion or against religion. You don't put up a sign you disagree with, and the government doesn't disagree with these," she writes.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm established by the Rev. Pat Robertson, said the Ten Commandments have acquired secular as well as religious meaning, and have come to be "uniquely symbolic of law." Sekulow noted the marble frieze in the courtroom of the Supreme Court building depicts Moses, holding the tablets, in a procession of "great lawgivers of history." (The 17 other figures in the frieze include Hammurabi, Confucius, Justinian, Napoleon, Chief Justice John Marshall and Muhammad, who holds the Koran.) Sekulow said, "Does the Supreme Court now issue an opinion that requires a sandblaster to come in? I think not," Greenhouse writes.

NFU says ag-market concentration keeps rising, calls for more competition

The National Farmers Union reported that concentration in agricultural markets has continued to rise, according to a study the NFU commissioned from Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan from the University of Missouri Department of Rural Sociology. The NFU reported the results at its 103rd anniversary convention in Lexington, Ky.

“The study showed the top four beef packers now dominate 83.5 percent of the market, four pork packers control 64 percent of that market, and the top four poultry companies process 56 percent of the broilers in the United States,” said the organization. NFU President Dave Frederickson said that ethanol production was the only sector where concentration has steadily decreased, saying it was a direct relationship to the high number of farmer-owned ethanol cooperatives in the country.

Frederickson also said the results were more proof that Congress needs to immediately pass legislation to restore competition for U.S. farmers and ranchers. “Independent producers cannot succeed in the absence of protection from unfair and anti-competitive practices,” he said. “We need comprehensive agricultural competition and concentration policies to restore balance in the marketplace.”

Some Southern Kentucky tobacco farmers not up to speed on buyout

Tobacco farmers in many Kentucky counties don’t understand the nature of the federal tobacco buyout or how to get buyout payments, reports the Bowling Green (Ky.) Daily News.

Sign-up for the money runs March 14 through June 17, writes Greg Wells. Prior to the sign-up period, quota holders and producers should get a letter explaining the program and including Farm Service Agency records of poundage for the past years, Wells writes.

Karen Evans of the Butler County FSA office, told Wells, “It’s really sad, we have people coming into the office still wanting to lease their tobacco bases this year. I’m really concerned that some of the elderly quota owners or the out-of-town property owners may not get signed up.” Logan County farmers also have questions, said Winston Woodward, that county’s FSA director. “We’re getting quite a lot of questions and can’t tell them yet how it’s going to operate,” he said. “We’ve also had to explain to quite a few that there are no tobacco leases anymore.” The FSA is sending direct mailings in Warren and Edmonson counties to tell what days producers can come to register, Wells writes.

All of the questions are a result of the passage of last year’s Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act, which ended the tobacco marketing quota and price support programs. Quota holders will be eligible for payments if they owned a farm on Oct. 22, to which a quota was assigned. Producers will receive payments per pound, based on production for crops from 2002, 2003 or 2004.

Johnstown's hard times turn to hope; ‘diamond in the rust,’ paper says

With such a bleak history, it might seem as if Johnstown, Pa. had nothing left but to become another old, depressed steel town, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But, says the newspaper, the city that was built on the backs of laborers from 23 countries has become known as a high-tech corridor.

"With its biomedical research, information technology and military subcontractors leading the new-job revolution, Johnstown developers are bringing in more needed manufacturing jobs," writes Paula Reed. "Nestled in the heart of the Laurel Mountains, Johnstown rightly earned itself a reputation as the heart of the American industrial revolution." With coal mining and steelmaking, the city hit its peak in the 1950s, when more than 40,000 people worked daily in those industries. But, Reed says the bottom fell out in the early 1980s, when interest rates climbed to 21 percent and unemployment hit levels seen only during the Great Depression. A population that once stood at 63,000 plummeted to 28,000.

Now, writes Reed, the city has embraced diversification in economic development. "It may be a catchword these days, but for the Johnstown region, diversification means everything. Economic leaders rely on it to help stimulate their economy, and to keep existing jobs in place,” she writes.

Linda R. Thomson, president of Johnstown Area Regional Industries, a local economic development agency, brags about recent announcements. Gamesa, a windmill manufacturing facility, is coming in. Conemaugh Health System is planning to turn a brownfield into a high-tech park. In a few months, International Steel Group is expected to announce a coke plant that could produce up to 800 jobs between mining and the plant. Over the next two years, Reed notes, the Johnstown area will need 2,000 people to fill new positions. Thomson tells her, "I think that's the most positive thing we've seen."

Influx of black bears leads to calls for hunting season in Kentucky

Bunches of black bears are pawing at porches, rooting through garbage and menacing pets in Central Appalachia, reports The Associated Press. Enough black bears have migrated into the hills of Eastern Kentucky that some think it's time to start hunting them down again.

"Outdoor enthusiasts believe the move would be good for hunters and would give the bears a fear of humans that would keep the animals away from homes, writes Roger Alford. Ronnie Wells, president of the Kentucky League of Sportsmen told AP, "It would make them stay wild. That's the philosophy behind it. They've been coming right down into people's porches and yards."

As recently as a century ago, bears thrived in Kentucky's mountain region, before overhunting led to their disappearance, Alford writes. But over the past 20 years, they've been venturing back through the forest of Virginia and West Virginia, once again giving Eastern Kentucky a self-sustaining bear population that has been increasingly butting up against residents.

A Whitesburg resident was ordered to pay a $250 fine for shooting a 270-pound bear that was eating from his garbage cans and frightening his dogs and horse. Neighboring Virginia and West Virginia have had bear hunts for years, but Kentucky officials say it would be premature for them to restart one because they don't yet know how many black bears live in the state.

Wild horses in the West run risk of slaughter; advocates rally to revive ban

After more than 30 years of roaming federal lands free of any threat of the slaughterhouse, wild mustangs, can now be sold and butchered for meat if the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) cannot sell them, reports The Washington Post.

"In December, Congress repealed a 34-year prohibition on the slaughter of wild horses, which have become synonymous with the spirit and heart of the American West, and required the government to sell the unwanted ones. Many ranchers complain that the horses are eating up forage needed for their cattle," writes Kimberly Edds.

More than 37,000 burros and wild horses, whose ancestors once sped Pony Express riders to their destinations, roam federal lands in 10 Western states. Arguing that the wild mustangs would starve on crowded federal lands or languish in cramped pens after being captured in government roundups aimed at thinning the population, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) attached an amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill signed by President Bush in December, she writes.

Under the Burns amendment, BLM, must sell animals older than 10 and those that have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption at least three times. About 8,400 animals would be for sale. Betty Kelly, co-founder of the advocacy group Wild Horse Spirit in Virginia City, Nev. Told Edds, "It's an atrocity. They really don't care about these horses. They just want them off public lands."

Road builder seems to lead ‘tangled alliance’ for Kentucky truck bill

Before the Kentucky House voted to legalize overweight gravel trucks on the state's roads, joining the overweight coal trucks already allowed, lawmakers heard again dire warnings of the death of the coal and trucking industries if the higher loads are not allowed reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

“The legislature must pass a bill to broaden the exemption in the 40-ton weight limit so it covers not only coal, but all other natural resources, such as gravel, sand, oil and natural gas,” writes John Cheves. But, because of a Pike County lawsuit filed by a jealous gravel trucker, Cheves notes, a judge is ready to kill the weight exemption for coal trucks.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Howard Cornett, R-Whitesburg, said, "They can't make a living at 80,000 pounds! Shut down the coal industry, and we'll shut the state down!" Trade groups representing the coal and trucking industries don't support Cornett's bill. Some non-coal truckers shudder at the idea of driving through the Appalachian Mountains at 60 tons, he writes. Roy Bruner, a trucker in London, said "Putting an 'overweight' decal on your windshield won't help you brake any faster with that kind of load."

Backing the fight for heavier trucks on both fronts is Leonard Lawson of Mountain Enterprises, the politically connected road builder who depends on gravel, and Terry McBrayer, lobbyist and former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, writes Cheves The gravel-trucking firm that sued the state over the coal exemption, D.R.T. Trucking, hauls for Lawson's various road-paving companies. It's represented in court by McBrayer's Lexington law firm.

Hollywood’s roots reach to Kansas farmer and wife; from figs came fame

Hollywood’s plumage was in full bloom last night as it picked from its crop those to be anointed with ‘Oscar” accolades, but its world famous film-empire name might be for naught if it weren’t for the choice of a fig farmer from the Sunflower State and more importantly his wife's fancy for names.

“No star exists for (that fig farmer ) H.H. Wilcox (nor for his wife) on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. In Topeka, where he began his fortune, no plaque bears his name. No statue bears his image,” writes Eric Adler in The Kansas City Star. Don Chubb, a leader of the Shawnee County Historical Society, told Adler, “I'd say you'd be lucky to find 10 people in the entire town who have ever heard of him,” said. “I thought I knew a lot about local history. I didn't know anything about him.”

In the shadow of the 77th Academy Awards ceremony, Adler writes, "Here is what there is to know: In 1883, 51-year-old Harvey Henderson Wilcox — a crippled Kansan who had made a bundle in Topeka rental property — set out for California. There, in 1886, he bought a fig orchard and 120 acres of undeveloped farmland with the idea of creating his own God-fearing community. It was his wife, Daeida, who gave the place a name: Hollywood.” (Your bloggers note that Hollywood is criticized for not giving 'a fig' for the aforementioned principle upon which the farm was founded.)

Saturday special, Feb. 26, 2005

Publishers of The Mountain Eagle receive award named for them

Tom and Pat Gish, publishers of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., accepted on Friday the first Gish Award, which the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues will give to rural journalists who demonstrate courage, tenacity and integrity often needed to render public service through journalism.

The award was presented at the Institute's first conference for journalists, on covering health care and health in Central Appalachia, at the University of Kentucky's Center for Rural Health in Hazard, Ky. (A report on the conference will appear later in The Rural Blog and remain on the Institute Web site.)

The following article is adapted from the tribute to the Gishes at the presentation of the award.

Tom and Pat Gish spoke in October at an event announcing the establishment of the award.

By Rudy Abramson, Advisory Board Chairman, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

On November 22, 1956, The Mountain Eagle carried a front page story reporting that W. P. Nolan and his wife Martha had sold the newspaper they had published since 1938 to Tom and Pat Gish.

Tom was a Whitesburg boy who had made good. Ever since graduating from journalism school at the University of Kentucky he had worked for the old United Press, mostly covering the state capital of Frankfort. Pat, a Paris, Ky., girl, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UK and a former editor of the Kentucky Kernel, had been a reporter for the old Lexington Leader, covering a variety of beats for eight years.

The Mountain Eagle purchased by the Gishes was an unremarkable, fairly typical weekly paper. Its masthead accurately proclaimed it “A Friendly Non-Partisan Weekly Newspaper Published Every Thursday.” To give you its flavor, I will read you the lead from its story at the top of Page 1 not long before Tom and Pat bought it:

“On Thursday, March 4, the Kiwanis Club of Jenkins has the pleasure of presenting Mr. P.L. McElroy, vice president of Consolidation Coal Company, Pittsburgh, Pa., who will deliver a lecture entitled, ‘The Future of Coal.’ . . . Mr. McElroy is well versed on all phases of the coal industry and is thoroughly qualified to speak on all aspects of our most abundant natural resource.”

There was no reason for folks in Whitesburg to expect that new ownership at the Eagle portended great change. But that’s exactly what was in store.

The Gishes had put out just two issues of their paper when Whitesburg, Hazard, and other communities were devastated by the worst flooding in a generation. Their coverage was fantastic. It equaled that of the Lexington and Louisville papers and it followed up on the story long after the city papers had forgotten it.

But notwithstanding the natural disaster, there was not a lot of obvious breaking news in Whitesburg and Letcher County in the late 1950s, and the so the Gishes turned to seriously covering the business of public agencies. They had not bought the Eagle with a strategy of launching crusades, but they quickly found themselves in an inevitable role of crusaders.

In those days in Whitesburg, as in many if not most small towns of Appalachia and elsewhere, public business was conducted with little public knowledge. Tom and Pat surprised city and county officials by showing up for their meetings. They surprised them even more when they began to report what was said and done, and this went against the grain of a lot of them.

The county school board, for instance, was the biggest public employer in the county. It had its meetings in a little room with seating space only for its members. Citizens who had business with the board were called in one at a time. Often they were dismissed with their issue left to be addressed by the board in private. No doubt to the astonishment of board members, Pat Gish began standing in a corner through these meetings and reporting the proceedings in the Eagle.

It didn’t take long for the board to adopt a resolution saying press coverage of its meeting was not permitted, and it didn’t take long for other public agencies to follow suit.

But this outrage was only the beginning. There followed, as most of you know, efforts to drive the Gishes out of business with advertising boycotts, competition, and eventually even arson.

The doctor who delivered Tom Gish into the world was the school board chairman and the political boss of Letcher County, and he put out word that school board employees were not to buy the Mountain Eagle. Along Main Street in Whitesburg, word was spread that Tom was a Communist. The Eagle lost for all time its major advertiser, an automobile dealer, which had been largely responsible for keeping the paper’s books in the black.

All of this took place at an extraordinary time. Appalachia’s wartime and post-war coal boom had collapsed. Throughout the fifties, families left Whitesburg and Letcher County in droves. The population had fallen by half, and thriving communities, such as Seco where Tom Gish grew up, withered away.

Mechanization of the mines not only threw tens of thousands of miners out of work, it brought environmental havoc to the mountains.

The Gishes’ Mountain Eagle, having replaced its “Friendly Bipartisan Newspaper” label with the defiant slogan, “It Screams,” became perhaps the country’s most defiant, most consistent, and most compelling voice against strip and auger mining in Appalachia.

The Eagle pulled no punches.

In 1960, its editorial leveled scathing criticism at Bert Combs, a mountain neighbor who would long be regarded as one of Kentucky’s most progressive governors, for failing to take a stronger stand against strip mining and for doing too little to address the economic distress of the mountains.

There were times when anarchy and insurrection loomed. The National Guard had to be sent in to prevent violence in the coal fields; The Eagle reported meetings in which citizens seriously suggested withdrawing from the state.

One Mountain Eagle editorial opined, “If five or ten thousand Letcher county residents went to Frankfort and pitched tents on the governor’s lawn and stayed until he put in an appearance, Combs might pay some attention to us.” Perhaps anyone who presumes to teach journalism in Appalachia ought to require a reading of editorials in The Mountain Eagle during the bad old days of the Sixties.

It quickly became one of the first news organizations to charge the federal government itself — specifically, the Tennessee Valley Authority — with being one of the major causes of strip mining.

With the publication of Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands in 1963, the ravages of strip mining, mountain poverty, and the condition of schools became national news stories, and Whitesburg became a frequent destination for magazine and newspaper reporters and television crews.

Readers of the Mountain Eagle were already familiar with places such as Beefhide Creek, which Caudill made famous. They already knew about TVA coal contracts that accelerated the spread of strip mining across Appalachia. They already knew about the deplorable condition of schools. Letcher County had nearly 70 one and two room schools when the Gishes began writing about the system, and The Eagle called most of them unfit for human habitation. Tom bitingly observed that Albert Einstein would have lacked qualification to teach algebra at Whitesburg High School.

In November 1963, shortly after the publication of Caudill’s book, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Homer Bigart traveled the hollows and mountain roads of Eastern Kentucky and wrote that Christmas would find many citizens facing serious hunger. His article brought an outpouring of food and clothing from across the country and became a landmark as the federal government considered an economic aid program for Appalachia. Interestingly, four years before Bigart’s article, a piece in the Mountain Eagle had begun with almost the same sentence: “ Many Letcher County homes will miss a visit from Santa Claus this year unless some of Santa’s helpers get to work immediately. Some may even do without a Christmas Day.”

As the national press, the White House, and Congress discovered Appalachian poverty, Tom Gish and Harry Caudill became the most prominent spokesmen for the region. Caudill’s law office and the Gishes’ newspaper office became the places outside reporters went first for tips, for information, and for quotes.

Bill Bishop, a 1970s Mountain Eagle reporter who now writes for the Austin American Statesman, remembers the day after the 1976 Scotia mine disaster when a New York Times reporter arrived in Whitesburg on deadline. The pages for the next day’s Mountain Eagle were already made up and were about to be loaded into Tom’s car and taken to the press. The Timesman grabbed and phone and dictated a story directly from the article written for the next day’s Eagle.

Not surprisingly, a great many local people deeply resented the national spotlight, and some blamed Gish and Caudill for negative portrayals. One local official threatened a BBC film crew filming citizens lined up to receive government food handouts. Later, a producer for a Canadian television crew was shot to death.

Through it all the Gishes remained stubbornly undaunted. Jim Branscome, who was the point man in pressuring TVA to open its board meetings when he was a young stringer in Knoxville for the Eagle, still recalls arriving in Whitesburg the day after an arsonist hired by a Whitesburg policeman had torched the newspaper’s offices. He went to the Gishes’ house and there sat Tom on the porch hunched over a typewriter, composing a story for the next issue. The issue appeared on schedule, with a famously altered motto on its masthead: "It still screams."

“Here he was not far away from his heart attack, having quit a five pack a day habit,” Branscome recalled recently. “And here he was determined to get out a few pages, just to let all the bastards know the Eagle was still screaming. Was it an incredible act of courage, commitment, or just plain mountain stubbornness? I still haven’t figured out the proportions of these three things, but I am leaning toward the last one as explaining a lot.”

It should also be said that The Mountain Eagle has done much more than fight for open access, expose strip mining, and expose corruption.

Every reporter and editor who came to work at the paper was instructed that the community columns by Siller Brown, Mabel Kiser and the other columnists who reported the illnesses, doings, and deaths from Millstone, Neon, and elsewhere around the county were not to be touched. Community columns continue to be an Eagle mainstay even though Mabel and others who first worked for the Gishes have gone to their rewards.

It’s very hard to sum up Tom and Pat. I have not even touched upon the things they’ve done outside the Eagle, the fine family they have reared, or their contributions such as Tom’s work on behalf of education in Kentucky, including a term on the state school board.

Others who presented awards to them have talked of many of the same things I have mentioned here. But the most cogent statement I have seen was sent to me last week by Tom Bethell, another fine editor and journalist who worked at the Eagle during the turbulent sixties, and I would like to quote him:

“They have produced week after week, nearly 3,000 times so far, a living, breathing, working definition of what good rural journalism is all about. They have always paid close attention to what could be described, wrongly, as the small stuff. In the pages of the Eagle you can count on knowing when the redbuds are blossoming and how the mist looks on Pine Mountain, who has come home for the holidays, who owes back taxes, and who has died.”

Recalling how the Eagle covered TVA, the War on Poverty, the Vietnam War, and the Watergate caper, Bethell went on: “One of the many reasons why Tom and Pat are great journalists is that they have always understood that there is almost no such thing as a strictly local story, and they have been willing to follow the story wherever it takes them. That, surely, should be a model and a mantra for rural journalists wherever they are.”

Over the past several years, the Gish team has received awards from professional associations, universities, civic organizations, and other publications, and national honors named for people from Helen Thomas to Elijah Lovejoy. Now, the fledgling Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues institutes an award — maybe we should call it a Prize — named for the Gishes.

From time to time, it will be bestowed upon a person or persons considered to have demonstrated the courage and tenacity that have made Tom and Pat icons of community journalism, and that are often necessary to render public service through journalism in rural America.

Frankly, I think this overlooks an even more important Gish trait — integrity. It has been their personal integrity that has made their courage, commitment, and tenacity so meaningful.

And so, I am honored to present the first Tom and Pat Gish Award to its namesakes — two great journalists, two fine people, and two sterling citizens of Appalachia and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005

Panel backs case directed at tobacco firms; wants youth education reinstated

A group of former high-ranking public health officials who served presidents of both major parties stepped into the government's racketeering case against the tobacco industry yesterday, asking the judge to reinstate an education program that cigarette companies once financed, reports The New York Times.

“The request came from the Citizens' Commission to Protect the Truth, a group of 21 former surgeons general, secretaries of health and human services and directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dating to the Johnson administration," writes Michael Janofsky. The group was formed last year to protect antismoking educational programs that had been required under a 1998 settlement that ended litigation between the companies and 46 states over health-care costs from smoking.

Commission chairman Joseph A. Califano Jr., who served as heath secretary under President Jimmy Carter, old The Times the commission's request satisfied a recent appeals-court decision. The court blocked the government's request for $280 billion from the companies, calling it a "backward looking" remedy that was not permitted under civil statutes of the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The ruling said that if the government did prevail in the case, any other remedy should "prevent and restrain" future illegal acts, not punish the companies for acts in the past.

Califano told the newspaper, "If you want to focus on future conduct, this is one thing the industry can do." Under the 1998 settlement, the four leading American tobacco companies - Philip Morris, Lorillard, R. J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson - were required to pay for education programs for five years.

Tobacco tradition is bid farewell, but officials say auction is not the last

Tobacco warehouse officials in Somerset, Kentucky, protested that yesterday’s tobacco auction was not the town’s last, reports The Commonwealth Journal.

Co-owner and manager of Peoples Tobacco Warehouse, William Shotwell, told the paper, "We'll be open next season, we'll have buyers, we'll sell tobacco." A warehouse partner, Glenn Martin, also objects to reports that this is the final season for the auctions. He pointed out that the Tobacco buyout bill only ends the price support system, writes Bill Mardis, the editor emeritus of the Commonwealth Journal. The bill, which was signed into law last October, also removes restrictions on growing the crop. Any grower can produce as much tobacco as he wants, but must also find a buyer, the paper explains.

Big tobacco companies have been contracting with farmers to buy the crop, drastically reducing the amount sold at auctions. The executive director of the Farm Service Agency, Lewis Colver, said that prior to yesterday’s sale, 1,817, 493 pounds of burley were sold this season at Peoples Tobacco Warehouse and Farmers Tobacco Warehouse. Growers made an average of $195.86 per hundredweight, Mardis writes. Figures on the sales from yesterday’s auction were not available at presstime, the Journal writes.

In a separate editorial, Mardis talked about what the price support system meant to tobacco farmers: “If a basket of tobacco fails to bring a penny more than the support price for that particular grade the basket goes to the 'pool.' In other words, the support price makes sure growers get a fair pay for their leaf.”

That system and the money it brought farmers were essential to Somerset, Mardis writes, saying, “It made the mortgage payment on the farm. The money bought Christmas presents for the family. Golden burley was the chief cash crop in Pulaski County and across the Burley Belt.” And while the sales may continue, Mardis says, the tradition surrounding it “is a thing of the past.”

Smokers forced outdoors, toxic cigarette butts pile up, befoul environment

As bans on smoking in public places proliferate, laws are passed and more smokers are forced outdoors to light up, questions about the growing problem of cigarette butts piling up outside those establishments and their environmental and health impact are being asked by The Herald-Dispatch in a special report.

“Cigarette butts roll off smokers’ fingers, down roads and drains ...They’re scattered over parking lots at shopping centers. They line walking paths,”write Jim Waymer of Florida Today and Crystal Quarles of the Huntington, W.Va. newspaper. And there may be even more of them because of bans on smoking in restaurants, many workplaces and public places. It’s the unintended environmental fallout of those defiant acts that has scientists worried, Waymer and Quarles write. Kathleen Register, an adjunct professor of environmental sciences at Longwood University in Virginia told the two reporters, "It’s growing in visibility as more and more people are outdoors smoking. I think people are angry that they need to go out and smoke, so it’s almost a defiant act to litter."

The full effect is poorly understood, especially at the base of the food chain. The more visible consequences higher up the chain are obvious when field biologists witness them. Wildlife rehabilitators, for example, routinely find cigarette butts in the intestines of dead sea turtles or see them on X-rays of sick ones, write Waymer and Quarles. The cigarette butts absorb the chemicals that burnt tobacco emits, including high concentrations of nicotine and nitrogen. Some biologists suspect even trace amounts of those chemicals, especially nicotine -- a natural pesticide -- may have harmful effects. The toxins can accumulate in higher concentrations in larger animals as they move up the food chain, they write.

FedEx halts East Kentucky drug deliveries; addicts try to skirt restrictions

FedEx has stopped delivering packages from online pharmacies to portions of Eastern Kentucky where prescription drug abuse has become widespread, and where addicts have been using the service to skirt restrictions and regulation, reports The Associated Press.

"Drug dealers and abusers have increasingly turned to ordering prescriptions from unlicensed Internet pharmacies since law enforcement agencies began cracking down on local doctors, sending some to prison for prescribing pills without legitimate medical reasons," writes Alford.

The problem has become so pervasive that state legislators are pushing a bill aimed at regulating online sales of prescription drugs. Attorney General Greg Stumbo called prescription drug abuse a cancer in Kentucky, he writes. The legislation would make it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to distribute drugs shipped into Kentucky by unlicensed Internet pharmacies, and would allow authorities to seize prescriptions ordered from unlicensed online pharmacies.

FedEx spokesman Ryan Furby told AP he doesn't know when the company will resume drug deliveries. He said the deliveries were stopped "because of the sensitivities of where they're originating and the possible contents of the packages." People who order drugs online must now get them at a FedEx station.

Letcher County Sheriff Danny Webb told AP drivers for companies like FedEx and UPS could have dangerous jobs in parts of Eastern Kentucky if addicts think they're hauling drugs from online pharmacies. "I've had reports of at least 10 people gathered around a UPS truck picking up their packages. If a driver goes up one of these hollows and comes up on six or eight people who know he has drugs on there, they may decide to take them," he said.

Tennessee congressman has bill to clean up after meth labs, study health effects

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis of Pall Mall, Tenn., is pushing legislation to require the Environmental Protection Agency to formulate regulations to safeguard residents from environmental and health hazards created by the production of illegal methamphetamine, reports The Tullahoma News.

Davis, whose Middle Tennessee district is one of the antion's most rural, is a co-sponsor of a bill that calls for the development of health-based guidelines in cleaning up meth labs, which have become an epidemic in rural areas nationwide. The Methamphetamine Remediation Act would require EPA to set up the health-based guidelines, fund field-test kits to help law enforcement detect labs, and fund a study on long-term health effects from the labs on children and law enforcement officers, the paper reports.

In a recent meth-lab bust in Smyrna, Ga., federal agents told nearby residents to not eat apples from trees in their yards because of poisonous run-off from the lab, raising considerable health and environmental concerns. In 2004, Tennessee accounted for 75 percent of meth lab seizures in the Southeast.

Man tries to hide arrest for meth, buys up local newspapers, paper prints more

Jack William Pacheco of Chowchilla, Calif., was arrested for meth possession on Feb. 17. The next morning, he decided the best way to keep it secret was to buy up every copy of The Chowchilla News.

He estimated he bought 500-600 copies of the paper. By that afternoon, the circulation department reports there were no copies available anywhere in town, but 500 additional copies were printed that night, reports the News. The weekly paper costs 50 cents a copy. Pacheco denied the meth-possession charge, saying it was an embarrassment to him and to his family.

UMW head arrested near Massey plant protesting pensions, health, jobs loss

Ten United Mine Workers union members, including UMW President Cecil Roberts, were arrested yesterday after a peaceful sit-in near a Massey Energy cleaning plant in Smithers, W. Va.

“Another 200 miners and supporters lined both sides of the road as the 10 men sat in the cold rain near an entrance to the old Cannelton Coal cleaning plant on the Kanawha River. When the 10 moved onto the main road, dozens of other protestors stood near them until Kanawha County sheriff’s deputies arrived to arrest them,” writes Paul J. Nyden of The Charleston Gazette..

Some held signs that said, “Why Won’t Massey Hire Union Miners?” Those arrested also included William “Bolts” Willis, president of Cannelton UMW Local 8843; Donnie Samms, deputy director of UMW Region II in Charleston; and Bob Phalen, former UMW District 17 president, writes Nyden. Each person arrested faces a misdemeanor charge of impeding the flow of traffic. All were arraigned in Kanawha County Magistrate Court and released.

Roberts told the newspaper, “We chose to rally at the Cannelton cleaning plant because of what happened to UMWA members at this operation last year is a perfect example of the harmful economic impact America’s federal bankruptcy laws can have on good, honest, hard-working people.”

Massey Energy bought the Cannelton mining complex from bankrupt Horizon Natural Resources last summer. They bought it after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge William Howard nullified the UMW contract at the mine, ending health-care benefits the contract promised miners for the rest of their lives. More than 1,000 miners, as well as 4,000 retired miners and spouses, lost their health benefits when Howard issued his ruling. The UMW is also upset that Massey reopened the mine as a non-union operation.

Cost analysis of 'No Child' law backed; Va. study aims toward withdrawal

Virginia lawmakers want to know how much the state is paying to implement the No Child Left Behind education law, and how much Virginia would lose in federal funds if it left the law behind, reports The Washington Post, a law that has strapped many smaller rural school districts with costly requirements.

"They need the information, they said, before they can consider the dramatic step of withdrawing from the federal program next year. It also signals of how seriously they take the state Board of Education's effort to win more flexibility on the law from the federal government," writes Rosaline S. Helderman.

Del. James H. Dillard II, R-Fairfax, chairman of the Virginia House's Education Committee and one of the assembly's most vocal critics of the law told Helderman, "It's going to cost us a whole lot more to stay in then to get out." The Board of Education voted last month to seek waivers from 10 detailed requirements of No Child Left Behind, citing a provision of the law that allows the U.S. education secretary to exempt states from any of its strictures. State Superintendent Jo Lynne DeMary told the newspaper there has been a meeting with federal regulators since that vote but that they have yet to comment on the their request.

Dillard told Helderman, "We have to stand up and assert our rightful prerogative to control education in the state." Negotiations now occur against a backdrop of escalating rhetoric about the law's impact on education, nationally and in Virginia, she writes.

Minnesota bill asks more flexibility on 'No Child Left Behind' testing

Minnesota should be granted the flexibility to reach the goals of the No Child Left Behind law the way it sees fit or it will opt out of the federal program, leaving federal public school funding behind as well, under a proposal introduced yesterday by a state senator, reports the Pioneer Press

State Senator Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, “also wants the (Minnesota) legislature to pass a resolution asking Congress to amend the No Child Left Behind law by adopting the recommendations of the National Conference of State Legislatures' task force,” writes Toni Coleman of the Minneapolis – St. Paul, Minnesota newspaper.

Kelley, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, told the newspaper, "I personally believe it's a moral and economic imperative to close the achievement gap. But we also believe that states and local districts know best how to accomplish the goal set out in No Child Left Behind and that the federal government has gone too far in prescribing the methods by which states and schools would achieve those goals."

Bill Walsh, Minnesota Department of Education spokesman, told the newspaper, "We certainly agree that No Child Left Behind needs some tweaking. We're working every day to get more flexibility out of the federal government and we're having success." Unless the federal Education Department agrees to changes in the implementation of the federal education law by July 1, 2006, the state would opt out and forgo up to $250 million a year in federal funding, under Kelley's proposal, writes Coleman.

"More than a few Democrats are suggesting that, just as the party informally decided to downplay the gun issue after their 2000 loss, Dems should now do the same with abortion (because) it might help them win downscale, small-town and rural voters who have been defecting from the party with increasing frequency," nonpartisan political analyst Charles Cook writes in his latest National Journal column. "Others warn that the abortion/choice issue has become so ingrained in the Democratic Party doctrine that to suddenly clam up would be seen as politically craven and actually counterproductive."

Cook lays out the debate among Democratic pollsters, beginning with Brad Bannon, who says the party should "emphasize an agenda of economic populism over social issues," because while conservatives outnumber liberals, "There are more populists than elitists." He notes that John Kerry won by only 1 percentage point among voters with annual household incomes between $30,000 and $50,000, showing that "the traditional Democratic message of economic populism just didn't penetrate with this struggling group of voters, whom he describes as 'barely middle class' and who make up just over a fifth of the electorate," Cook writes. Our guess is that a disproportionate share of those voters are rural.

On the other side is Kerry pollster Mark Mellman, who argued in a memo to a women's group that supports abortion rights that the issue "played little role in the election, though to the extent that the issue was engaged, it appears to have been a net positive for Democrats," Cook says. Mellman also argues that "moral values" were not a key factor in the race, "that this conventional wisdom is an incorrect interpretation of flawed wording in an exit-poll question," and that a majority of Americans support some abortion rights.

"More intriguing," Cook continues, "Mellman suggests that 'the country is moving from a class-based political alignment to an alignment based on culture' . . . that the lines are increasingly drawn between those who have a more traditional cultural stance (who are aligning more with Republicans), and those who are more progressive in terms of cultural values (who are siding with Democrats)." Mellman's memo says "cultural progressives tend to be pro-choice, while traditionalists are often anti-choice," but "there is no evidence that the issue of choice itself caused the cultural alignment or that changing positions on choice would undo the current alignment."

Pollster Mark Blumenthal tells Cook that abortion is a "double-edged sword," because "there were certainly gains (for Democrats) during the 1990's in non-southern, upscale suburbs" and "long-term losses in rural areas." Another pollster who "preferred to go unnamed" told Cook that "a party should not have a position on abortion -- it is a personal decision and when a candidate has a personal conviction, our party should not have a litmus test for support. This pollster said "many urban and suburban voters lean pro-choice, but not militantly," and "abhor extremism in politics from either side, but they are more concerned with privacy than rural voters" Most voters, he says, don't want to talk about the issue.

A fifth pollster, also anonymous, told Cook that "a cluster of social issues" such as abortion, gay rights and gun control have mobilized liberal Democratic activists "and, along with opposition to the Iraq War, define "progressive" politics." This pollster says Sen. Hillary Clinton has the perfect position for a "pro-choice" Democrat: "Stay pro-choice but speak to those in the middle who want abortion to remain legal as it is now, but have strong moral qualms."

Gun-control debate has taken a breather, reports Minnesota newspaper

The national debate over gun rights, for decades among the most searing and divisive of political issues, appears to be all but over in Congress, reports Matt Stearns of The Kansas City Star.

That means that the assault weapons ban, a signature achievement of gun control advocates that expired last year, probably will not resurface anytime soon. Conversely, congressional leaders and the Bush administration haven't put a priority on efforts to expand gun rights, Stears writes from Washington.

Saul Cornell, a historian who is director of the Second Amendment Research Center at The Ohio State University, told Stearns, “There's a perception that Washington is not the place to take the debate at this moment.” Cornell said politicians on both sides see little advantage in pressing the issue. Stearns notes that “Democrats, desperate to regain their appeal to middle America, are moving away from the party's long identification with gun control, much to the relief of many beleaguered Democrats in states like Missouri.”

Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton said of the issue, “It's a loser. Many in the Democratic leadership know that small-town and rural America is very pro-gun. It's part of our rural society, and people have to respect that. I think Democratic leadership is understanding that and reflecting that obligation to respect rural values,” he told Stearns.

Republicans, however, have become wary of boasting about their long and profitable alliance with the National Rifle Association, the nation's leading gun rights group, he writes. In the 2004 election cycle, the NRA's political action committee spent more than $12 million, mostly to aid Republicans. Included was $1.2 million backing President Bush and more than $1.5 million against Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Untaxed cell towers multiply; county fails to collect property levies on structures

Richland County, S.C., has a problem that many other rural counties might share. It could be missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue because property taxes haven’t been collected on dozens of cell phone towers, reports The State newspaper of Columbia..

“County officials know of 105 existing or planned cell phone towers in unincorporated Richland County. But only about 40 are being taxed, said Harry Huntley, Richland County auditor. There could be even more untaxed towers, county officials acknowledge,” writes Gina Smith.

Because the county doesn’t know for sure how many towers are untaxed, it’s not clear how much money — revenue that could go to schools, libraries, the Sheriff’s Department and other county agencies — has been lost, she writes. An $84,000 tower, which Huntley cited as a typical example, would bring the county $3,200 in personal property taxes annually. Towers can cost between $75,000 and $300,000 to build.

Jonathon Yates, a Charleston attorney who represents Cingular Wireless, told the newspaper he was surprised to hear the county hadn’t taxed some towers. Yates told Smith it would be hard for a company to skirt the county’s process. He said Cingular is being taxed.

Virginia community newspaper group switches editors for 'fresh perspectives'

Three of the six editors at Community Newspapers of Southwest Virginia will be moving on to other roles, announced the newspaper group this week, as part of its plan to better utilize the editors’ strengths and freshen the papers' outlook, reports the Smyth County News & Messenger.

The editor of the Wytheville Enterprise, Stephanie Porter-Nichols; the editor of the News & Messenger, Dan Kegley; and the editor of the Washington County News, Mark Sage, will take on new roles, said the newspaper group’s publisher, Samuel Cooper. Porter-Nichols will become editor of the News & Messenger, Kegley will become general manager and editor of the County News, and Sage will take over editorial responsibilities at the Enterprise, Cooper said.

Cooper said the changes are to allow "fresh perspectives and approaches," to make a news product that is more responsive to its readers. “Every few years an organization needs to rethink how it does business and then reinvent itself in a way that will show progress. We think this is what we’ve done,” Cooper said.

Porter-Nichols told the paper, “Words can’t express how much I will miss working with the people of Wythe County. I have come to believe that its community members are all part of my extended family ... I’ve had the chance to observe many exciting opportunities that Smyth County is pursuing and I look forward to learning more about those and getting to know the people that make it a unique community.”

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005

Bank regulators propose new requirements for community lending

A little over six months ago, The Rural Blog published its first story, about a proposed change in federal rules that would exempt most banks from strict requirements that they support their communities through local lending and direct financial support of local causes. This week, the two big bank regulators offered a new Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) plan that affordable-housing advocates found more palatable.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced that the threshhold for a "small bank," the type that have less stringent regulations, would be raised to $1 billion from $250 million. In some states, most of them rural, that would apply to all or almost all banks. Banks getting this break would have a new "community development test" allowing them to "allocate their resources for CRA purposes among community development loans, investments and services based on the needs of their community," the two agencies' joint press release said.

"The proposal would also expand the definition of community development to include activities such as affordable housing in underserved rural areas and designated disaster areas." the release continued. "The agencies seek comment on the best way to identify 'underserved' rural areas to ensure that CRA activities are targeted to the rural communities and persons in those communities most in need of community development and affordable housing."

“Small” banks are examined only for their record of making loans in the areas that they serve, while “large” banks undergo a stricter, more complex test of their patterns of providing service and investment in those areas. Banks say the current rules are too costly and thus inhibit investment.

The National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, which was critical of various regulators' plan to raise the small-bank threshhold to $1 billion, said the new plan "is a much-improved proposal and an important first step toward updating CRA regulations." It said the Federal Reserve Board, which regulates national banks and had expressed concern about the original plan's effect on rural areas, is expected to follow suit, and called on the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates savings banks, to do likewise. OTS raised its small-bank threshhold to $1 billion last summer withour adding a new test.

The Independent Community Bankers of America contains banks of all sizes and charter types, dedicated to the interests of community banking, the group says. The ICBA President and CEO, Camden R. Fine, issued a statement praising the FDIC/OCC CRA small bank proposal.

Fine said, "Relieving larger community banks of unnecessarily burdensome data collection, and expanding the definition of community development to foster needed rural economic and infrastructure development, will allow community banks to refocus their efforts on meeting local needs." For more see ICBA website.

Broad, bipartsan group of state officials seek change in No Child Left Behind

A bipartisan group representing 50 state legislatures has called for major changes in President Bush's landmark education initiative which it lambasted as "unconstitutional and impractical," reports The Washington Post. Many smaller rural communities find themselves especially hard-pressed to meet the 'No Child Left Behind' requirement to have a qualified teacher in the subject in every classroom.

"The ... report from the National Conference on State Legislatures "reflected widespread local unhappiness with the ... law, which sets out federal requirements designed to ensure every student is proficient in reading and math by 2014," writes Michael Dobbs. The report also said states should be given much greater latitude in interpreting the law and opting out of provisions that undermine local initiatives. Republican state Sen. Steve Saland of New York, who co-chaired a task force that took 10 months to review implementation of the intiative, said the law imposes an impractical "one size fits all" education accountability system across the country that stifles local initiatives, Dobbs writes.

The report complained the federal government provides less than 8 percent of the nation's education funds and seeks to impose an "unworkable accountability system in return." The task force said the federal government's role has become "excessively intrusive" in an areas states have traditionally controlled. The report contends the law leads to lower academic standards, has increased segregation, and has driven away top teachers from needy schools. It alleges the government is violating the Constitution by coercing state compliance.

The Washington Times reports the Utah Legislature is poised to repudiate the law and spurn $116 million in federal aid tied to it because state policy-makers are fed up with federal control of education and dictates. State Rep. Margaret Dayton, a Republican and mother of 12 who has led the rebellion to make Utah the first state to opt out of the law, told writer George Archibald, "This is not a partisan issue; this is a states' rights issue. We share the same passion President Bush has for quality education, but there is not one opponent [to opting out] in the entire Legislature, which is 2-to-1 Republican." Her bill and another giving primacy to state education standards, won unanimous House approval last week.

Subsidy debate reveals a truth: Much farming is a government enterprise

 

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005

Series on rural growth from new sewer devices wins Tenn. paper big award

Brian Harville's stories for The Lebanon Democrat on the impact of decentralized sewer service in rural areas of fast-growing Middle Tennessee won him and his newspaper the award for small-circulation papers in the American Planning Association’s Journalism Awards Competition. “Little Pink Houses,” a three-day series in December, focused on Wilson, Williamson and Rutherford counties, the paper