MIDDLESBORO — A group of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKCTC) students and faculty members, in partnership with the Bell County Historical Society, is seeking to record and archive the stories of longtime Bell County residents.
This effort is the latest phase of the Bowling Family Gift Project. Since May 2007, the project has generated a yearly $2,500 scholarship and it has been rewarded to one SKCTC student for achievements in community research. Students must be enrolled full-time at the SKCTC Middlesboro Campus in order to be considered eligible.
Project Director Amy Simpson spoke about the importance of the historical/community project:
“People’s stories are such a valuable part of our community history,” Simpson explained. “And time is of the essence to capture those as soon as possible.”
Southeast Community College (SECC) Professor and Service Learning Coordinator Joe Marcum added, “This is supremely a service learning project, and that links nationally. There is monies out there. There is grants out there. And the key is to link it directly to our students and to our classes.”
Several SKCTC faculty members — including Rhonda Breedlove, Ken Maciula, Joe Marcum, and Amy Simpson — have recently incorporated local history in their curricula, and they are currently looking to expand upon their local, historical knowledge by arranging interviews with willing community members.
In August 2008, the Middlesboro Little Theatre (MLT) presented an “Evening of One Acts,” which was based solely upon research conducted by SECC students. SECC and MLT will stage a full-length play in April 2010 tentatively entitled “The Gatekeeper: Middlesboro’s History in Four Acts”. The play will chronicle the town’s significant past, and will be grounded on the work of local scholars.
Director Simpson spoke about the approaching event at a recent Bowling Family Gift Project meeting:
“The sort of frustrating part of this play is that really you could do a full-length play on any one of those four eras and still not get everything,” said Simpson. “We’re still just skimming the highlights... It’s not meant to be a documentary, it’s meant to be a play.”
Simpson went on to say that she has been talking with local musicians/students about contributing to the upcoming production. She stated that the music will be relevant to each period of time in Middlesboro — including the Pioneer Era (1750 -1825), the Civil War Era (1861-1865), Boomtown (1890s) and Little Las Vegas (1920s -1955) — and will center around traditional instruments, if made possible.
“That’s what I’m envisioning,” stated Simpson enthusiastically. She went on to say that the production will not be a “folk opera,” but the music will play a large part in tying all the eras together. Performance dates have been set for April 16 -18, 2009.
For any additional information, or to schedule a historical project interview, please contact Project Director Amy Simpson by phone at 606-248-0484.
Adam Young is a Staff Writer for the Middlesboro Daily News. He can be contacted by e-mail at ayoung@middlesborodailynews.com.
A quotation from the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer comes to mind: "The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children."
A student interested in researching the impact of contemporary mining practices on the kind of world we are leaving to our children, migh begin with a visit to the following web site:
http://www.mountainroadshow.com/gallery/index.html
This site features a photographs of a large coal sludge pond near Middlesboro, and of the moonscaped mountains of Letcher County, Bell County's next door neighbor. Bell has similar sites, of course.
We've inherited beautiful mountains. They are a message in the making that our generation will send to a time that we will not see.
Students involved in this project, the essence of which is "legacy," can help to prepare the content of that message.
It would also be important to include details on abandoned mines in the area. While the region's past is rich in a history of underground mining – which many of us benefited from – history will look back on the blasting and stripping away of the mountains we hold dear as simply destructive rather than historically rich. For a practice making up such a small percentage of total mining, mountaintop removal is the most devastating. Though it is a controversial topic, and the well-funded opposition to the growing anti-MTR outcry would like to label any negative sentiment to an aspect of mining as all together anti-coal, it will be important to preserve an equal representation of sides. Just because the growing outcry demands a halt to MTR, does not mean we are all anti-coal. Oppositely, we would potentially see an increase in jobs in our region of southeast Kentucky were we to have more underground mining and less monster pieces of machinery and explosives doing the jobs of a hundred men in a single scoop.
Why not get the Middlesboro Daily News involved? Broaden and deepen community involvement. Organize a county-wide local history essay contest open to high school students from the county's high schools. Expand the historical vision to include the full geographic scope of the county: Cumberland Ford and The Narrows, South America, Yellow Creek, Straight Creek, the Cumberland. Invite essays on the history of the region's economy and its evolution, on specific individuals and companies that have had an impact.
Develop and publish guidelines for the annual essay contest, establish categories of essays, get local businesses to sponsor prizes for the essay winners (cash, modest scholarships, etc.).
Obtain commitments from area high school history teachers and English teachers to participate by incorporating local history research into their classes and serving as advisors to students who want to research and write essays. Teachers might consider allowing students to do a term paper on some aspect of Bell County history as a senior project--for extra credit.
H.H. Fuson's HISTORY OF BELL COUNTY, KENTUCKY could be a summer reading project and a topic of discussion in history classes at county high schools. Both volumes are easily available online--at no cost to the students.
Get the Bell County Historical Society involved. The Society (or the College, or the library) could archive all essay submissions and maintain them in digital files available to the public to read, and for future essayists to use as research resources. The Society might work with the college to sponsor an annual awards event to celebrate first, second and third prize winners in various categories.
Such a project would help focus young people on the history and heritage of which they are a part, challenge them to improve their writing and research skills, while providing a legacy for the future.
And the Middlesboro Daily News might play a significant role, as the community's cheerleader for the project--publish the guidelines, promote participation, publish information about the annual winners, and where the public can access the essays online.
Why not?