100 Days in Appalachia

W.Va. Opioid Settlement Funds are Supposed to Reverse Years of Crisis. In Several Counties, They’re Being Used to Pay Regional Jail Bills.

In rural Wyoming County, West Virginia, Ann Reed is the sheriff’s department’s only social worker. Funded through a temporary grant from a local mental health center, Reed provides resources and care ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Big Tech Comes to Tucker County, WV

Pamela Moe was reading the paper in late March when she spotted a public notice from a company she’d never heard of. Fundamental Data, a Virginia-based company, had applied for a permitfrom West ...
100 Days in Appalachia

‘We Know What It’s Like To Be Exploited’: Tucker County, W.Va., Grapples With Future-Defining AI-Infrastructure Proposal

To fully appreciate the beauty of Tucker County, you must visit. Nestled at 3,500 feet in the gorgeous Allegheny Mountains along the Blackwater River, the town of Davis is at the highest elevation of ...
100 Days in Appalachia

In West Virginia’s Southern Coalfields, a Grassroots ‘Jubilee’

On a late spring day in 2022, Rev. Brad Davis was riding along the twisting roads of McDowell County, West Virginia. Davis was soon to start his current job pastoring five United Methodist churches ...
100 Days in Appalachia

What is the New Apostolic Reformation? How a Religio-Political Movement is Affecting U.S. and Appalachian Politics

Apostles and prophets. Spiritual warfare. Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation. You might come across these terms if you follow politics these days. Here’s some context and clarity about the ...
100 Days in Appalachia

‘Hell or High Water’: Southern W.Va. Three Weeks After the Flood

On February 15, 2025, a catastrophic flood ravaged McDowell County, West Virginia, and much of the state’s southern coalfields. At least three people were reported dead due to the flash flooding, with ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Tyler Childers’ Appalachia: How the Country Singer Challenges our Relationships with Addiction and Religion

The first time I heard Tyler Childers’ voice I was riding in the passenger seat of a 15-year-old car late at night through the back roads of West Virginia. It was 2019, and I was 17 years old. And ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Reclaiming and Revitalizing Resources in West Virginia’s Southern Coalfields

*Note: this is the second of two stories on how faith and community leaders are working together to address clean water and healthy food infrastructure in McDowell County, W.Va. Read part one here.
100 Days in Appalachia

More ICE Detainees Ordered Released by West Virginia Judges: ‘A Threat to Anyone’s Constitutional Rights is a Threat to Us All’

This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get stories like this delivered to your email inbox once a week; sign up for the free newsletter at ...
100 Days in Appalachia

As COVID-19 Damages Black Appalachian Communities, This Mother, Daughter Team Are Working to Save an Unexpected Casualty: Black History

Dr. Norma Thomas carries a microphone as she walks the streets of Uniontown, Pennsylvania’s East End. This is the “before times,” before COVID-19, and as Thomas recounts the local history of the East ...
100 Days in Appalachia

For My Indian-American family, West Virginia Will Always Be Home

“West Virginia” is never what people are looking for when they ask where my family is from. The first week of January, my dad and I drove five hours from our house in North Carolina to visit his ...
100 Days in Appalachia

Five Years After It Became a National Park, There’s a Growing Divide In West Virginia’s New River Gorge

The New River Gorge is a jagged area in the middle of Southern West Virginia’s coalfields. Shaped by one of the oldest rivers in the world, whitewater rapids roll under its high petrified sandstone ...