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

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

‘A Crisis of Truth:’ Trauma, Disinformation and the New Apostolic Reformation’s Effect on Our Politics

On a sunny October Saturday three weeks before the election, about 100,000 Christians gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to fast, pray, and atone for sin. Although the event, dubbed “A ...
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

The first time I went to Muskingum Island was in 2024, before the work began.

Listen to the sounds of the island. On an unusually cool and dry morning in late July, I met Victor Elam, the Refuge Manager of the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge, at a boat launch just ...
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

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

Meet a Doctor Inside a W.Va. Crisis Support Center Who Relies on Hope in Recovery

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. At the West Virginia University Crisis ...
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

‘In the Boat Together’: Post-Helene, Faith Communities Have Been Central to NC’s Long-Term Recovery

In late September of last year, Tropical Storm Helene dumped up to 20 inches of water in parts of western North Carolina. In Ashe County, where Reverend Blake Smaar leads the congregation at West ...
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 ...
100 Days in Appalachia

We Mapped Rural Data Center Development – and Opposition. Here’s What We Found

This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com. Washington, D.C.’s metropolitan area has long hummed with data centers.