The First Year

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve already been a part of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum team for just over a year. It seems like yesterday that I came up to the Museum for my orientation. This has been one of the busiest, most productive years of my life and career, and I wanted to give folks some insight into what I’ve been doing this past year with the Museum.

Connecting with Students

By far, one of the biggest joys of my job has been the many opportunities to teach students about Mine Wars history. Whether it be leading students on a group tour or portraying a coal miner for over a hundred 4-H campers, sharing this history with young folks has been perhaps the most rewarding part of my experience with the Museum. Learning how to tell the stories of the Mine Wars effectively to a wide range of age groups has helped me to better understand the history as well, and it has reinforced to me the importance of making sure the younger generations learn about the struggles of the West Virginia coal miners as the fought for their rights.

Teaching Trunks

My primary project during my first year at the Museum was the development and rollout of three teaching trunks. These trunks allow us to send the museum out to educators - at no cost to them - so that they can teach a week’s worth of lessons and activities about Mine Wars History. These trunks were a group effort: I got to work with veteran educators, including Board Member Bobby Starnes, West Virginia Council for Social Studies president Adena Barnette-Miller, Mingo County educators Eric Starr and Joe Hunt, and our wonderful AmeriCorps volunteer and teacher in training, Candace Bennett. So far we have had requests for the trunks from all across West Virginia, and even a couple from outside of the state, from educators teaching at a wide range of levels.

Camp Solidarity

Back in October, the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum hosted Camp Solidarity, its first-ever labor conference, in Historic Downtown Matewan. I played a large role in planning and coordinating for the event and served as the MC during the two-day conference. It was an unforgettable experience to meet over 100 people from 17 states and two foreign countries who came to Matewan to learn about labor history and how to make their unions better. We will start planning for Camp Solidarity 2025 very soon!

Overall, this has been an exciting, challenging year for me at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. I have learned so much in my first year on the job, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds. None of the work I have done over the past year at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum would have been possible without the contributions of our Members.

Will you become a member and help support this work?

Membership with the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum allows us to do programs and develop resources for educators to use in their classrooms. It also helps us to preserve the history of the miners’ struggle for justice and civil liberties for generations to come.