Janet Kincer

“We had free run of the mountains, up and down the hollers barefoot, scraping the black top off our feet with alcohol and a butter knife at the end of the day.”

Janet Kincer, Co-Manager, Letcher County Farmers Market, Apple Tree Project; Crafts Collie, Kentucky:

“I was born and raised here and graduated high school here. I left and went two years to Hazard Community College and [then] and went to Lexington. I just moved back in December, after thirty years.

Growing up here was wonderful. I never felt restricted or hindered. I was blessed with a wonderful mother who never censored anything that I read, and always encouraged me to learn in any way possible. We had free run of the mountains, up and down the hollers barefoot, scraping the black top off our feet with alcohol and a butter knife at the end of the day. We had many friends and there was always family around. 

My mother would take a cast iron skillet and a few potatoes and onions and off we’d go up into the hills and build a little fire and fry them and eat them. My father was a coal miner, and my mother worked for the postal system. They split up when I was a freshman in high school. I think he broke an ankle one time in a little rock fall at the mines, but I’m not for sure. I remember him coming home black and dirty. He looked like everybody else’s Daddy, ‘cause everybody else’s worked in the mines. 

My great-grandmother had my grandmother out of wedlock. My grandmother got married young and had my mother. My mother got married young. They were very independent, strong, hard-working women, and the absolute glue of the family. My mother’s mother was from Pike County, from Beefhide. My Mommy’s Daddy was from Fleming/Neon. They both passed away by the time I was seven, but I remember the love and the closeness. 

My mom’s mother, especially, taught me love. She didn’t call us by our names she called us ‘Precious.’ She would never raise her voice. She would always make sure that my sister and I had Easter dresses and Easter shoes and Easter hats. She would come and give us little girls’ day and bathe us and powder us and fix our hair and pretty us up. [She would] make us feel special and then she’d want to take us somewhere. If nothing else, we’d walk down Front Street in Fleming Neon so everybody could see her pretty little granddaughters. 

My father’s father was an elder in the old Regular Baptist Church. He was very caring, very kind, considerate, loving and knowledgeable. He could teach you by showing you. He would tell you, but you learn so much more by showing. My father’s father was very understanding and very accepting. Even though my parents got divorced, he loved my mother dearly and loved his kids dearly. 

Living away from here was totally different. The people are not the same. I found out early on that unless you affiliated yourself with other people from Eastern Kentucky, there was no one that you could depend on. It’s like everyone had an ulterior motive. I had a pretty big epiphany about six years ago and I thought I needed to call someone. Even though I was married at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable with that, and I thought the closest person I could call was my best friend about an hour and a half away. That was a huge eye opening experience for me. I knew then that I really, really wanted to come home and that started my journey to get back. 

I always did come home, but my kids were grown and I could get to the point where I could come home more often. I would come home and I would camp, or I would stay with my brother or I would stay with a friend. It got to be every other weekend, and I ended up getting divorced and moved home in December. No job, no place to live. No plans. Just that I was coming home. I can’t describe the feeling I get. I go hike just about every morning on Pine Mountain, and it just feeds my soul. 

When I was young, town was bustling. The high school was up on the hill, every storefront was filled, and there were many cars. Even though unemployment was high for the whole state, it was low for here. I come back, and there are a few storefronts that are open in town, and it’s totally different. It’s kind of scary, but we’re a hard-working, resilient people and if we want to make it, we’re going to make it. If our economy is going to turn around we’re going to take care of it ourselves. 

(Cultural differences in Lexington vs. “home”) Here, we like to place everybody. It’s not an offensive thing; it’s not a ranking thing. We just want to know where you’re from, what group you’re from, who you belong to. It’s not like that [in Lexington]. Depending on people is almost non-existent. You have to be somewhat self-sufficient. You have to have your true inner circle of people that you can go to, and you may or may not have that closeness in relationships. If you were to break down on the side of the highway, no one would stop and help you. Here everyone would stop and help you and you knew it would be okay to take their help. 

[Appalachia is special because of] the people. A lot of it originally came from the isolationism. If we’re going to make it, we’ve got to make it on our own and take care of our own selves. There is a vastness of knowledge here that you don’t realize you have until you leave. You do something and people look at you and say, well, how do you know how to do that? And you’re like well, you just do! Don’t you do it that way? And they look at you like they have no idea. From raising a garden to animals, to self-sufficiency and taking care of your own home. When I first got divorced, I changed the locks on the door of my house, and my neighbor lady came over and just stood and stared at me. She asked, ‘what are you doing? I [told her I was] changing the locks, and she said, ‘where’d you learn to do that? I said, my mother, and she thought I was crazy. We have a sturdiness that I don’t think other people have and we value our people and our land more than most people do. 

Everybody thinks we’re all toothless, dumb, inbred, barefoot. We are some of the most intelligent people I have ever encountered in my life, because don’t just have book learning, we have common sense and we have learning that you just pick up in your lifestyle. Not all intelligence comes from universities. I’ve got two degrees, but I value my upbringing as a degree, also. The stereotypes are wrong and they’re very hurtful. We’re the only ones that it’s still okay to make fun of, and that’s wrong. I think it’s because people think that we’re dumb and we won’t catch it. 

I’ve written stories about coming home. It was overwhelmingly emotional, hoping that I could get home to do what I wanted to do and that it wasn’t too late. I had been coming home quite awhile and quite often, so I had more trouble leaving. Crying my way back down the Mountain Parkway. Knowing that I was here and I could stay if I wanted to. Knowing that I would be taken care of if I couldn’t take care of myself. I’m almost fifty-two years old and that’s a big step to do. It was a good thing. It was a real good thing. 

I’m a hillbilly in the best sense of the word. It means that I was raised right; I was raised with manners, I was raised with knowledge, I can dress up or dress down, I can go in the hills and stay three or four days and be okay, or you can dress me up and take me to a party and I’ll be okay. I feel like I have an immense knowledge of our plants, our food, and the people. The women of this culture are so very talented. They can cook, they can grow the garden, and then they can also work outside the home and a lot of them are single mothers. We’re very proud of our land; we’re very ingrained in our land. To have a draw to a place and not a person, you can’t explain it to anyone else. But there is a pull. Almost like a magnet that pulls you back here. This is where you’re from, this is where you belong, and this is where you should be. 

I worked for twenty years in a residential treatment facility in Lexington. Then I sold institutional groceries for about three years and then I was a cafeteria manager in an elementary school in Fayette County. Now, there is a huge grassroots movement to go back to local farming to feed the local economy and the local people. Everybody thinks that it’s a movement away from here, but it’s not. These are things that we knew, things that we were raised with. 

The Farmers’ Market has been wonderful, getting to know the farmers, talking about the different vegetables, how can we make it better for them. There are several vendors here that say, ‘I make my money in Letcher County and I’m going to spend my money in Letcher County.’ 

The Appletree Project is promoting healthier eating. We have healthy cooking classes. We have the water filtration systems in the high schools and the middle schools to promote more water drinking, more activity and healthier activities for the students. With fast foods and the processed foods and all the different supermarkets, we’ve gotten away from that healthier eating. Unfortunately, Eastern Kentucky is a pocket of bad health; obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. 

We have to have more than one economic factor that’s going to feed this area. It can’t just be like coal was or like lumber was. The food movement is huge. Tourism is another thing that could be huge [as well as] cultural aspects from the music to the crafts. Not to turn it into a Gatlinburg or a Pigeon Forge, but to really promote and show what we, have and benefit our local people.

I remember going camping up on Pine Mountain and stripping off buck-naked and taking a shower under Bad Branch Falls. We didn’t realize how close it was from the bottom of the mountain because we’d come over the top of the mountain down from the top of the falls. There was this large group walking up from the bottom of the mountain, and we barely got our drawers on. Bad Branch Falls is majestic and enchanted. It’s a sixty-foot, natural waterfall and a gorge. I would advise anybody to go up it any time, but if you really want to see it roll, go up after, the old folks called it the spring floods, in April after it rains for a week or so. As soon as it stops raining go up the next day. They’re absolutely gorgeous. In Letcher County, go across Pine Mountain on 119, turn back to the left on 932, and go about a mile and a half down. 

I would hope that twenty years from now [this area] would be a pocket of cultural tourism. It would be wonderful to make it a little go-to place in the mountains. And in some ways it has! Whitesburg, it’s a happening thing! I mean you can get a beer and a tattoo in two places in town now! (Laughs) On the same day! And that’s not a bad thing.”

Senator Robin L. Webb

“I had to get my first job (as a miner) a little deceptively. A lot of folks thought it was bad luck for a woman to be around a mine site at all, let alone work at one.”

Senator Robin L. Webb, Senate District 18 (Boyd, Carter and Greenup Counties, Kentucky); Grayson, Kentucky: 

“[As a child] We had ponies, and horses, we had a farm where we had cattle, so I spent most of my time with my Dad and my grandpa shooting guns, plowing, gardening, working in hay, riding ponies, and fishing, and those kinds of things. I liked to read, liked to write poetry, liked to write. My grandmother did a lot of that, so I had a pretty normal childhood, normal to me, anyway. I was the kid that had the Tonka set out back rerouting the stream, so mining was always an interest of mine.

[In high school] I was an athlete. Back then you could play more than one sport, and I always showed horses. I’ve shown horses most of my life, so that continued. [Again], I stayed in the field as much as I could with Dad. 

I have two mining degrees from Morehead State University, one in Underground Mine Safety, and one in Surface Mining Production. I worked underground in Martin County, and worked in Boyd County on surface jobs and underground. I was lucky that I worked in a company that gave me the opportunity to do that. I had to get my first job a little deceptively. A lot of folks thought it was bad luck for a woman to be around a mine site at all, let alone work at one.

At Morehead, I got the award for the most outstanding mining student. I had a teacher that worked for Ashland Coal, and he was in charge of co-ops. There was a coal company in Ashland, [and the operator] called my teacher, and said, ‘I want the best student you have for the co-op.’ [My teacher] said, ‘I’ve got one that’s the outstanding mining student.’ [The mine operator said] ‘Yeah, that’s what I want. You send him over. Who is it?’ [My teacher knew the operator] and said he knew it wouldn’t fly if he told him I was a girl, [so he told him my name was] Rob Webb.

I’d worked for another coal company here [and] I was making pretty good money doing little things for them. I had a pretty nice car, and I pulled up and opened the door. He told me later, ‘When I looked out that window, I said, Oh, my Lord, if this is Rob Webb, what have I got myself into?’ He told me later ([after] I promised not to sue or anything), ‘I gave you every job to make you quit. Everything I asked you to do, you’d do it, and want to do more. I couldn’t get rid of you. Then I just decided to keep you.’ (Laughs) I operated every kind of piece of equipment, I worked on every crew, and I had a lot of opportunities to learn about the business. 

I was tickled to death. That was my four-year degree goal, and that’s where I felt safest. We had a safe mine, and everybody looked out for each other, but it’s an unnatural atmosphere and Mother Nature can trick you up pretty quick with a pocket of methane, or a spark from one of the pieces of equipment. A lot of things can happen underground. When you’re an underground miner, you knew that when you went in there, some days you might not come out. That’s something you have to accept, and your families have to accept. It’s just an inherently dangerous environment, but I always felt quite safe there, and quite comfortable.

Once I got in there everybody was a little leery [not knowing] if I could pull my weight, if I could do the job, but I did. I was treated with a great deal of respect, and the men taught me a lot. Of course, being a Webb from Johnson County, my grandpa was born in Van Lear, and a lot of the guys in Martin County had family that was Webbs, I was really more like family, so my experience probably wasn’t a normal one for a woman who was going into a mine like that. 

I started working in the coal industry probably ’79. [Women in the mines] was sort of an anomaly at the time. I was working underground when [actress] Cheryl Ladd came, and they filmed ‘Kentucky Woman’ right across the hill. Our guys came back from a retraining where they’d met her, and they said [to me], ‘we met that little girl playing a coal miner, and she don’t weigh ninety pounds soaking wet. We told ‘em, we’ve got a blonde girl mining for us and she looks like a coal miner. She ought to be in the movie.’ I think there’s a compliment in there, but I wasn’t sure.

Larry Addington, from Elliott County, ended up being very successful in the mining industry. Larry was a friend of our family’s, a friend of mine. He had sold out his first coal company, and I was working for another one. Some days I would be out operating equipment, and I’d look up on the hill, and I’d see his truck. Then, I’d see him socially in town, and I’d say, ‘Larry, did I see you up on the hill watching me the other day?’ He said, ‘Yeah, sometimes I get to thinking about you out there operating equipment in the strip pit and I’d have to go see it for myself.’ And we’d have a few laughs. 

I was graduating [with my undergrad degree], and he said, ‘You need to think about going to law school.’ I didn’t have much interest in that. I was looking at geology or hydrology, or something like that to stay near the mining industry. He said, ‘I’m getting tired of training lawyers about the coal industry.’ He encouraged me to go to law school because I knew every area of production, maintenance, safety, and I had the opportunity to actually operate heavy equipment from rock trucks, front-end loaders, and underground, I was a scoop operator.

I passed the bar in 1986. My first job was being Environmental Prosecutor for the state in the surface mining [division]. I was the youngest in surface mine litigation, and eventually went to Hazard to represent a lot of major companies there in a firm [and] had my own practice. The full circle of the Addington story though was when I came back, he hired me as his General Counsel. At that time we were the fourth largest coal producer in the nation, and had operations in eight states. I felt like his advice was good, and I give him all the credit for my legal career, which led to my political career. Larry Addington had a huge influence on my life, and all that rushed back to me a few weeks ago when he passed away. He gave a lot of people a lot of jobs for a lot of years in East Kentucky. His heart was really here.

My Dad was an optometrist in Grayson, and he was Fish and Wildlife Commissioner here, and represented the area. I was in the House of Representatives for ten years, and I’ve been a State Senator here since 2009, and of course, I’m on energy committees and natural resources committees in our General Assembly, and then nationally, too, I serve on a few. I still stay involved in the energy industry.

I’ve been offered jobs doing international coal litigation, moving from Pennsylvania to Colorado, but this is home for me. My family came in with the Boones, and there’s nowhere else that holds the heartstrings for me. This is where I want to be. 

[Coal has] gone downward in a spiral. We’ve lost so many jobs. I love working in the coal industry, and made good money. We did it in a responsible manner. You can mine coal in a responsible manner, and that’s important. I’m a conservationist, too, so historically there’s a little conflict there. But you know, I tear up driving down 23, when the way of life has changed so much, and I don’t know what the future holds. I know from a global energy standpoint, there’s nothing else that can replace [coal]. Energy diversity is something I’ve always been an advocate of, even when I was making a living in the coal industry. Oil and gas are fossil fuels, as well. They’re going to have their share of environmental battles, too. 

Wind and solar can’t pull the weight of the grid with any consistency and reliability. Coal will eventually come back to a stabilization of the market. The demand is there, if we’re allowed to mine it from an environmental agenda standpoint. The other countries across the way, they want it, and the export market is there, and will be there. 

Coal is sort of predictable in the way that they approach it in certain areas. Nobody wanted to plan ahead, and that’s been the cultural change that we have to work with. When I was a young lawyer in Southeast Kentucky, we created a group [and] we talked about it every year. We were trying to find ways for sustainability and diversity, [to] strike that balance. We talked about tourism then, talked about other things. Tech wasn’t such a hot item back then, when we were carrying cellphone bags. Some of the same people are still there, and we’ve got some political clout behind it, and money, and a real need. But now we’ve waited till the need is so great, we’ve got a hole to dig out of if we’re going to retain our people that we have here, let alone attract any more in. 

I think we’re on the right track with broadband. We have to have that. That’s the technology infrastructure. Unless we get that capacity, we’re just talking, so we’re working on that at the federal and state level [and] we’re making progress. I was there when the first elk hit the ground up there. There’s mixed reviews on that, but the bottom line is, an economy in adventure tourism, like trail rides [can be successful]. We’ve got music, the Country Music Highway [and] venues, so we’re working on ways to connect artists, venues and fans. I think hemp is a good opportunity for Eastern Kentucky. I’ve worked on that for over a decade. Then again, nothing is going to be the salvation. It’s just going to be the pieces to a puzzle that we’re working on one by one. We’ve inventoried and inventoried, and we know what we’ve got. Now to put it all together before everybody leaves.

I don’t take much offense to the stereotypes. I’m liable to take pride in them. I just bought a new truck, and I asked Mom, ‘Does this look like I’m a big redneck?’ And she said, ‘Oh, yeah, it does, and you are.’ And that’s okay with me. I don’t want to start categorizing and saying, ‘Oh, that offends me, and that offends me.’ I just usually kind of laugh, and go on. I like my guns. I’ve got my Bible. I’ve got all that. As a lawyer, yeah, I’ve got an accent. Yeah, sometimes they take me lightly. Sometimes they think I’m some idiot from East Kentucky and they treat you different. Usually we trick them pretty good, so that’s okay with me. 

Losing my Dad was one of the worst things that I’ve gone through. I miss him every day. But again, I think of the cultural shift lately when I drive up 23, and just can’t fathom the thought of these kids. I know the poverty. I know there’s a drug problem, because they can’t go to the mine opening and have any hope of getting a job. This is an incidental coal economy up here because we have a steel mill, and we have all that, and all those good paying jobs. You can’t just not go to school, and walk out and get a job anymore. Schools are expensive. If you’ve got a drug problem now, you’re not going to get in school. You’re not going to flourish in school, and there are not enough treatment facilities. 

It’s a cultural shift that makes me the saddest, knowing that these kids can’t graduate from high school, and have any hope of making a decent living drug free. I’m not saying that it can’t be done, but it’s just sad that the opportunity is not there as much. Maybe we sold them short in some ways, because it is so desperate down there. But when I go and see the inactivity, or the change of culture, whether it’s downtown, or going to the convenience store and not seeing any coal miners at shift change, it saddens me, and I know that it’s never going to be the same. 

I get a lot of joy out of my children. I’m real proud of them [and they] are real good. I’ve got a daughter [and] she’s married and lives in Virginia, and my son’s at Morehead State University, my Alma Mater. I take a lot of [personal] joy in them. As far as professionally, every time I win my election, I’m just proud to serve. That’s a big accomplishment for me, my people having that much faith in me. They don’t always agree with me, it’s going to happen, but they keep electing me, and [it] means a lot to me that they do. 

I got an email a couple of days ago from an environmental lawyer. We had been against each other [in the past] and he said, ‘I’m sitting here listening to a KET committee meeting, back when you first got elected [and] you were a young Representative talking about telecommunications; keeping [and] protecting land lines, protecting the elderly, protecting vulnerable people in rural communities, and not letting them get left behind or left out, especially in the land lines, telecom arguments.’ And he said, ‘Thank you. You have always represented those who didn’t have a voice.’ 

One of my former seatmates called me The Queen of Lost Causes. I’ve been called the voice of the inmates, and that’s fine with me, too. The elderly living up the head of a holler, drug addicts, or somebody that society’s forgotten, that’s who I protect. (Overcome with emotion) That’s the way that I want to be remembered.”

Rebekah Wallace

“Most people who have drug problems are the best liars…in the world. They can have you believing something even when you know it’s not the truth.”

Rebekah Wallace, Nurse, Professional Case Management; Worthington, Kentucky: 

“I’ve lived in Kentucky my whole life. I was born and raised in Greenup. I moved to Worthington just about four years ago, it’s not even ten minutes from here. I work for PCM, Professional Case Management. They provide in-home nursing care for former nuclear weapons workers through the Department of Labor. Most of their clients have worked at the A Plant in Piketon, Ohio. 

My family lived in town, but my Dad had a really big yard. We lived over on Winifred Street, where most of the blacks in Greenup lived. We lived over there and he had about three or four acres, which is a good-sized yard to be so close to town. I was outside a lot growing up. We had a creek in the back, played in the creek a lot and built dams. My Dad worked at AK Steel, back then it was ARMCO. He also had cleaning jobs right here in town. He cleaned the courthouse, he cleaned Leslie’s drug store, and he cleaned the bank. He worked full time and had four cleaning jobs on the side. At one point, he had about five jobs, all together, and a garden. He was a hard worker. My Mom did some cleaning too; I remember she worked at a shoe store, but most of the time she was with us kids.

We would get to go pick the green beans and strawberries (in my Dad’s garden). I loved that. We were allowed to go pick in the garden, but he wanted to be there when we were doing the picking. He was very particular about it. He always had green beans, potatoes, corn, strawberries, grapes, blackberries, and zucchini. We weren’t allowed to go in the garden without asking. My Mom did a lot of canning; corn, green beans, tomatoes, and she’d make spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes. A whole lot of good, fresh food on the table in the summer. 

We had all kinds of trees around our house. Lots of trees. We were always picking up sticks as kids. That was our job. He’d tell us to go pick up sticks, so we did that a lot. (Laughs) 

I have six sisters and two brothers. When I was little, there were nine kids in the house for a short period of time. By that time my oldest brother was off on his own and then my sister got married. ‘Course that’s still a lot! Seven of us in the house. I enjoy coming from a big family. It can be a little trying at times, but I liked having older brothers and sisters. Growing up, my parents mainly just expected us help out and work and mind your manners. That was the main thing at that time. Do as you’re told. My Dad, he was more the authoritative type. My Mom...I didn’t get in trouble often, but you know, I was a kid. One time I broke my older brother’s sunglasses that I wasn’t supposed to have. If I got a whipping, Mom would be the one to give me the whipping. Not necessarily my Dad. He did a few times. We got discipline. We got switches. We always went to church. I’ve gone to church all my life. They were big on Bible study. They both took a part in that. They really instilled in us what the Bible teaches; to live your life by the Bible. That was their main thing as far as what they expected of us. They wanted us to live life as a Christian. 

Before I was married and had kids, when I was able to, I never really thought about moving then. I was so much of a home baby. I’d get homesick, I’d miss my Mom. Even when I went on vacations with my cousin when I was like 13 or something I’d get so homesick. At that time, I never really thought about it. But then after I had kids and stuff I thought, you know, if I was single, if I didn’t have kids, it would be kind of nice. I have a sister who lives in Greenville, South Carolina, and it’s such a nice area. 

I like to get away and go on vacation and visit places. I love to travel. I’ve been to different places in Florida. We go to Destin and vacation there. I’ve been to New York City about four times. I’ve been to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. I’ve been to Dallas, Texas a couple times. I’ve never been outside the United States, though. I would like to travel abroad; I would like to do that. I enjoy traveling, but it is nice to get back home. I’ve been to Washington, DC [and] I’d like to take my kids there hopefully next year. 

I have four kids aged 16, 14, 11 and 10. I’m single now, thank goodness. It’s been hard. Even when we were together, I was pretty much raising the kids. He had a very bad drug problem and he put us through the wringer. It’s physically hard, but it’s also mentally hard. Everything falls on you. He’s been in and out of prison, which is where he is right now. 

I was working at AK Steel at the time and bought my first house. I lost the house. Everything was due to his drug problem. I had to take my purse in the bathroom with me so he wouldn’t steal my money. I could write a book about that. [He was addicted to] painkillers, which is so bad in this area. He didn’t have an injury, he just picked it up. He had had some issues with it before we got married, [but] not when I met him. When I met him he was clean and wasn’t using or anything. I led a very sheltered life and that was just something I knew nothing of. I had very strict parents. We got to do things and have fun as kids, but my Dad was strict. I was sheltered and I didn’t really know a lot, didn’t really date a lot or anything like that. Anyhow, that was just something I knew nothing of. I knew about it but I didn’t know red flags and stuff like that at the time. Of course now, looking back... 

At first I tried to shield my kids from it. When they’ve been let down so many times, I got to the point where I had to be a little more blunt about what he did and what was going on. You get tired of seeing them let down so much, getting their hopes built up and being on that roller coaster. You think things are going to go good, and then they just do the complete opposite. I got to the point where I didn’t want them to have these expectations anymore because it’s just too hard on them. I’m very up front about how I feel about it and I don’t want that life to happen to them. 

[Red flags for a drug problem include] Changes in the mood. When somebody is really over the top happy and then maybe you don’t hear from them for a few days. They can give you every excuse in the book. Most people who have drug problems are the best liars. You can’t put it any other way. They’re the best liars in the world. They can have you believing something even when you know it’s not the truth. That’s just how good they are. The main thing to look for I believe is the mood swings, and changes in sleeping patterns.

The mentality that people have here is special. They’re more laid back because it is a Southern atmosphere where we are. It’s just friendly. That’s what I like about it. Friendly and laid back and family oriented. I like small towns. 

When I watch the news and the person that they pick to interview [from Appalachia], I’m thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, why? They could’ve interviewed somebody that had some teeth!’ (Laughs). You do see that a lot around here, but there are so many around here that aren’t like that. There are a lot of good people in Appalachia. We’re a very hospitable bunch of people and we welcome you. We have big aspirations for what we want and what we want for our family. We have dreams just like other people do. Just because we’re in a small town, doesn’t mean we have small thinkin’. 

These past four years, I’ve had the most stability that I’ve ever had. I have my home, have a steady income. My kids are in school and doing good. All three of my boys play football and they love it. I enjoy going to their games. 

I’m in the process of starting my own little side business in addition to what I do. I’m meeting with the health department to get my permit so that I can start my own business. I’m going to be making cinnamon rolls and marshmallows. In Kentucky, I can’t actually do it out of my home. I have to have a commercial kitchen. As long as it’s a commercial kitchen that’s all that matters. The one I’m going to use is out of Corby’s Tea Room. Corby, he has businesses himself and I’m going to be working out of his kitchen. 

I thought about calling [the business] Miss Hazel’s Kitchen. Hazel Jackson was my grandma, my Mom’s mom. She was known for her old fashioned fudge. She made chocolate and she made white fudge. It was so good and so creamy [and] she was known for that. She was a very good cook and baker and all that. I used to watch her make candy. I’m the only one in the family who makes the fudge now, and it took me a long time to learn it. It takes a lot of patience making that stuff! Cinnamon rolls, I’ve been making those for a long time and over the years I’ve got them to where I think they’re really good. I always make them at the end of the school year so the kids can take them to school. People just know of them and they ask me about them, so I just thought that would be something good to do. 

(My grandmother) was known for her transparent pies. I think that’s mainly a southern thing. She would make the little tarts. It’s like eggs and sugar and butter and it may have some corn syrup in it. The sugar it forms a little crust on the top. Oh they’re so good! My sister Carla, she’s the one that’s carried on that. She makes the transparent pies and brings them to every reunion. She’s the pie-maker. I have never had any better than what she makes. 

I just started doing the marshmallows this year. I don’t know how I came across it or why, but I never thought about making marshmallows. I watched some videos on YouTube and I follow a couple people on Instagram and that’s all they do is make marshmallows, that’s their business. As old as I am, I’d never had a homemade marshmallow until this year. My Mom had never had a homemade marshmallow and she’s in her seventies. So I’m thinking, how many other people have never had a homemade marshmallow? I thought it would be something new and different. You wouldn’t believe the stuff you can do with a marshmallow! 

I don’t know how I’m going to do everything, but I’m just trying to take it a step at a time. Got to get my permit. I’ve got me a little canopy and I thought I could set up at Old Fashioned Days here, and have me a little booth set up at shows, fairs. Also, I’m going to be able to sell some things out of Corby’s shop so I’m excited about that. It’s something different and I’ve always wanted to do something on my own like that. 

I like it here. I’m a home girl. I like Greenup, but I do have a lot of aspirations for my kids and myself. I just want to provide the best I can for them. I want to be remembered as a good person, a good mom. I took care of my kids. I raised my kids. [I was] someone that lived their life in a good way. 

I feel like I’m tryin’ to brag or something (laughs).”

Julie Jent

“I don’t think [Malaysians] had any concept of Appalachia. When I would say ‘Kentucky,’ they would say, ‘Oh, KFC!’”

Julie Jent, Sophomore, Berea College; Jackson County, Kentucky:

“My parents got divorced when I was young, and I guess just neither one of them were prepared to take up the duty of raising a kid. My great-uncle adopted my sister, and me and we’ve lived with them ever since we were younger. I have seven brothers and sisters, but the rest [them] live with my mom or my dad. 

I always appreciated the times that we got to spend together, like playing games outside. I valued always having someone to play with while I was growing up, just being able to be outside and see other kids like myself. 

[My great uncle is] a maintenance man for the schools, and so I thought it was really cool growing up, always seeing him around the school. I felt like a hero guy. He’d come in and fix the air conditioner, and I’d always see him on the playground doing something. That was nice seeing him involved in a lot of my childhood, even though it was behind the scenes. 

Middle School is a rough time for everybody. I don’t think anybody looks back and is like, ‘Oh, I wish I could go back to middle school.’ But high school was great. I got to know a lot more people, and I got interested in a lot more things. I always knew I wanted to get out and do different things. That’s why I got involved in Youth Working Group, and I did Upward Bound for four summers of high school. I got involved in anything I could to broaden my horizons.

[At] seventeen, I applied at for a U.S. Abroad Scholarship to be a Youth Ambassador for the State Department. Being from a small town in Kentucky, I never really thought I would get it. The day kept getting closer, and I went to interviews and finished the application. I remember when I found out; I was pulling up my internet, just scrolling and waiting for it to load, and I just remember seeing, ‘Congratulations. You’ve been accepted. You’re going to Malaysia.’ 

I ran into the living room, and started like screaming. [My family] didn’t believe me at first. They thought it was like all made-up, until I like got on the plane to leave. 

[I went] from a town of seven hundred, to a city of seven million, [so Malaysia] completely changed my perspective on everything. How people live their daily lives, what they do, and the education system was a lot to adjust to. I lived with a local Indian host family, so it was different adjusting to the mom, dad, and brothers and sisters all in the house, and acclimating myself to [determine] where I fit in. 

It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t think they had any concept of Appalachia, but they kind of knew a lot about California or New York. When I would say ‘Kentucky,’ they would say, ‘Oh, KFC!’ It was great telling them about where I was from. Yeah, we have a lot more scenery, and yes, I have a really big backyard, because to them, where the population is so high, property and things are really expensive. To have a yard, you have to be really wealthy, and so I would show them pictures of my house and things, and they were like, ‘Wow! That’s really awesome.’ 

(Did growing up in Appalachia prepare you for life?) I don’t think I would have the mindset that I do today, if I was from somewhere else. It’s nice to be able to look back on my childhood, and be able to realize how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned and [how I] really became my own individual person, rather than just having everything that I know just handed to me. 

[Appalachian traditions] are so well kept and passed down from generation to generation, that it just seems like you’re in your own little space, which is your family. What makes Appalachia is the fact that we treasure traditions and like passing down things to our kids and grandkids.

I don’t know if I consider myself a hillbilly, just because I always grew up with it as a negative connotation. I really like the fact, though, that some people are really taking it and owning it. I think that’s bringing it back in really a positive way. 

[My family taught me] hard work and gratitude. My uncle didn’t have to do the things that he did for us. I value his kindness, and everything that he’s done for us. He was just grateful for what we did have, and he really instilled in us to appreciate what you have. 

There are a lot of things wrong with the media. First of all, they don’t cover the news that needs to be covered. They cover really superficial things that nobody really cares about. When they go for interviews, I feel like they really hunt them down to find the people that are the most stereotypical version of Eastern Kentucky, or just Kentucky in general, and they get them to give these interviews. I think that definitely plays a part in how we’re perceived.

We might not have grown up privileged and had everything handed to us, not that everyone has, but we have the same goals and aspirations as [everyone else]. It’s really important to try to understand before you take somebody for face value. 

I go to Berea College and I’m majoring in Political Science. I hope to become a Foreign Service officer, so I’m doing steps to make that happen. There’s always going to be those people that are going to come back and enrich the community, but you don’t necessarily have to enrich the community by staying here. There are important ways to represent it abroad, with diplomacy; representing where you’re from, and being proud of it so people get a better idea. Just like how we’re under-represented in media, being out there in the public eye, and showing them, ‘Yes, I’m from here, and I may not be living there now, but I’m doing other really great things, and I’m proud of where I’m from.’ 

One of my big hobbies is obviously traveling. I love to travel and go to new places, to just explore everywhere. I don’t get to do that quite as often as I would like because college takes up a lot of time, but I think in college there’s a lot of opportunities for hobbies. There are so many things to get involved with, like the things on my campus. I’ve done sports, and I really enjoy reading when I get a chance, and going hiking. There are really beautiful places to hike out in Berea, and I enjoy camping, and just doing things most college students like to do.

(About the It’s Good 2B Young In The Mountains Conference) This conference definitely sets a precedence for many conferences to come. I hope it opens a lot more people’s eyes, because they think that there’s not a lot to do in their community, and don’t really know ways to get involved. This [conference] is a great networking opportunity. I know the word networking seems like its overused, but [this] is a really good opportunity to meet people. We’re all from like the same region, and it’s great to see where everybody’s at with their lives, and see what everybody is doing to better Appalachia. 

I would like my legacy to be focused on representation, and not only representing myself and being the best version of myself that I can be, but representing the United States and Kentucky, as well. It’s important to understand other people, where they’re coming from and their backgrounds. That’s one of things that I really hope people remember me for, just being an understanding person that really tries to look at things from an unbiased point view and tries to understand individuals on more than a face level value.”