On Feb. 2, 2016, Jeff Whitehead, Executive Director of the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), spoke about the job impact that the gigabit-speed fiber-optic network built by Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative (PRTC) is having in rural Jackson and Owsley Counties.
Junior and senior high school students representing the Appalachian Renaissance Initiative (ARI) Student Senate passed a resolution in favor of the White House’s proposed POWER+ Plan to invest in the region. ARI Student Senate is a part of the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative’s Race to the Top Grant supporting innovative education in 17 rural eastern Kentucky school districts
In this special edition of WMMT’s Mountain Talk, Hollis West and Robert Shaffer describe their sometimes controversial, often successful, efforts to develop an anti-poverty program in Knox County, KY in the 1960s and ’70s that put into practice the War on Poverty Program’s call for “maximum feasible participation of the poor.” Their story is followed […]
Kendall Bilbrey and Eric Dixon speak about their new research report on the Abandoned Mine Lands Program, which includes input from a broad range of stakeholders across the Appalachian region. The report analyzes the history and impact of the AML Program and identifies potential improvements that could provide jobs and other economic benefits in the […]
