Friends of Coal

Beckley, West Virginia taken by Stephen Dukes

My nephew Steve is still in West Virginia on business and he tells me that he stumbled upon a cult, of sorts, the Friends of Coal. There is a full-blown media campaign trying to garner support for and indoctrinate the youth of West Virginia for their cause, coal. I know that the same type campaigns exist for electric companies and even for milk, beef and avocadoes, but somehow this campaign seems not quite as wholesome. It feels more like the type of campaign a tobacco company might have run in the 1950's to get young people hooked on cigarettes.

Young people growing up in West Virginia are faced with some pretty tough choices. The Clash summed up the situation when they asked, "Should I Stay, or Should I Go?" West Virginia is having difficulty keeping their young people in the state after they graduate from high school. Steve made a valid point when he asked, "What's the point of educating the young people in the state, if you are just going to send them down into the mines after graduation?" According to the Bureau of the Census, West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the union and there are several problems facing West Virginia that are foreign to anyone who grew up in a less poverty stricken state. There just aren't a lot of employment options in West Virginia that pay well enough to support a family.

The Friends of Coal is similar to Houston Proud (for those of you who remember the dark days after the oil bust when Houston needed a morale booster). The difference between the organizations being that Friends of Coal is cheerleading for the Coal Industry and Houston Proud was boosting the city with a focus on morale and volunteerism. Friends of Coal tries to be the answer to all of the dilemmas facing West Virginia; whether it's the stemming the flight of their youth to ensure future coal miners (you can't expect today's coal miners to live forever), reforming coal's dirty reputation as a pollutant (coal, the clean burning fuel), or understating the impending depletion of coal as a natural resource (never mind that it is a non-renewable fossil fuel), the Friends of Coal is the solution to the problem. The report, Coal in West Virginia, by Dr. Stuart McGehee on the Friends of Coal website (p. 34 of the Fact Book 2003) shows a nice interplay between the truth, and the fantasy that they are presenting as fact. One paragraph begins, "Although coal mining was dark, dirty, and inherently dangerous, many miners enjoyed their day's work." Being glad to have a job and enjoying back-breaking labor and the anticipation of black lung, are two entirely different things. It's a shame that in such a beautiful state with such hard-working people noone has found a way to help its young people avoid life in the mines.