Church at home in Appalachia hills

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 8, 1995 by Dorothy Vidulich

NEON, Ky. - "Change comes slowly here in the mountains," said Arlie Hall, a minister and mayor of Neon, nearly a ghost town with its boarded-up shop and few people to wander its worn, gray streets.

The Appalachian region is many things including big cities like Pittsburgh and Birmingham, Ala., with their sprawling prosperous suburbs. But when people talk about Appalachia, they mean the land and lives that start about a harbour's ride after the suburbs stop. In that Appalachia, towns like Neon are flawed jewels in a beautiful setting. Neon itself nestles in the valley of the vast Cumberland mountain range - to the north is Kentucky's Pine mountain range to the southeast Big Stone Gap, Va.

Yes, mountains and forests have been abused and the streams and air polluted by more than a century of exploitation and poverty. Yet, Appalachia's majesty remains.

Neon, population 1,000, an increase of 250 in five years, is located in Letcher County, 180 miles from the nearest major city, Lexington, and approximately 450 miles south of Washington. Job opportunities are tied to the coal industry, which has been in a slump for more than a decade.

"Many counties in Appalachia are still coal-dependent," said Anthony Flaccavento, peace and justice coordinator for the Richmond, Va., diocese, and an example of the widespread Catholic presence that has taken up the work of justice in the region. "There are always coal trucks on the road," he said. "But machinery has destroyed the jobs of many workers." For example, in 1981, 48,000 miners dug 117 million tons of coal; in 1990, 32,000 miners produced 131 million tons.

Decline of employment in the coal industry because of advances in new technology and the decline in the tobacco industry because of antismoking campaigns and overseas tobacco buying, exacerbate the continuing economic crisis, Flaccavento said.

Letcher County's average per capita income of $10,868 is only 59 percent of the national average of $18,477. The unemployment rate is 13.7 percent compared to the 5.7 percent national rate. About 27 percent of the people live below the poverty level. Current statistics show only 45 percent have a high school education. School populations are small.

Appalachia abounds in annual curses and disasters. Here, yearly floodwater further erodes thousands of acres of forest land - the cause: abandoned-mine lands with high erosion rates. Neon's annual floods close streets to local communities; sediment maroons homes and businesses.

"Though the struggles and dreams of the Appalachian people have not changed dramatically over the past 20 years," Hall said, "their attitudes have." One reason is reverse migration.

There's `payback'

Although young people still leave the poor, job-short region of mountains, forests, woods and rivers named for the Appalachian mountain chain that runs from New York to Mississippi, their parents and grandparents are returning. Some of the 4 million people who left Appalachia for work in northeastern and other cities between 1940 and 1970 have come home to retire. Some have settled in nearby Lynch, once the largest coal town in the world. Today it is marked by abandoned schools, hospital and hotel buildings, haunting reminders of that prosperous past. A few dozen homes are occupied by retirees.

"With their education and their knowledge of modern communications," Hall said, these returnees" are requiring those here with decision-making authority to be more accountable, to have long-range plans for school system reform, for land use and clean water." Hall hopes that the younger generation will realize that it's "payback" time - they must give back to this land where they have strong roots and not be manipulated by special interests, he said.

Hall himself stayed long enough graduate from Cumberland College Williamsburg, Ky., in 1972. He worked for a few years for the state of Kentucky but became disillusioned when he realized he was helping to make the establishment exist - "I was becoming part of the problem and I knew it was time to leave."

"As a consultant with the coal industry and then in construction," Hall said, "I traveled from Virginia Beach, Va., to Orlando (Fla.) to Raleigh (N.C.) and then in 1989 returned to Neon." Hall, 47, is married and has two grown sons from a previous marriage. A Pentecostal minister, he was elected Neon's mayor in 1991. He said moral and religious values undergird his political decisions.

"People here don't see religious division," Hall said. "They don't look at people as Roman Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. That's why they all respond to the sessions about the Catholic bishops' pastoral letter," referring to discussions that have been held in the community.

The discussions are part of the preparation for a new document, "At Home in the Web of Life," due to be released in November, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of an earlier bishops' letter, "This Land Is Home To Me." Two decades ago, in that landmark statement on the Appalachian region, 26 Catholic bishops attempted to lend their support to the "cries of powerlessness" from their struggling and exploited people. In Neon, Hall is determined to improve social and economic conditions. A priority is providing a dependable water supply to Letcher County. He has also brought in equipment to improve drainage and water delivery.