Summary

West Virginia: Its Farms and Forests, Mines and Oil-Wells celebrates the state of West Virginia. Originally published in 1865 as a series of studies on mineral resources, observations on agriculture, and interviews with businessmen, West Virginia details the industrial statistics, terrain, and population of a state during its infancy.

With no record of natural wealth or reported transactions of agriculture or geography prior to this overview, West Virginia sparked the curiosity of non-residents, enticing investment and settlement through descriptions of abundant natural resources and an agreeable industrial condition.

With an introduction by Kenneth Bailey, this new edition of West Virginia reminds us of the state’s alluring beginning and rich, yet often exploited development.

Contents

• Introduction
• Preface
• CHAPTER I
•   west virginia.—cradled in convulsion.—a sturdy race.—old jealousies.— reorganization.—new laws.—finances.—her boys in blue
• CHAPTER II
•   original settlement.—where virginians emigrate.—tobaccoand the blue laws.—lands.—the “tomahawk right.”—how thepioneers lived.—getting married.—progress.—population.
• CHAPTER III
•   location.—value of lands.—stock growing.—fertility.—no waste areas.— comparison with maryland, minnesota, andnew hampshire.
• CHAPTER IV
•   climate.—altitude.—temperature.—rain-fall.—salubrity.—scenery.
• CHAPTER V
•   topography and statistics of counties.—the valley group.
• CHAPTER VI
•   survey of counties continued.—the mountain group.
• CHAPTER VII
•   survey of counties continued.—the “panhandle.”
• CHAPTER VIII
•   survey of counties continued.—the river district.
• CHAPTER IX
•   survey of counties continued.—the kanawha valley.
• CHAPTER X
•   survey of counties continued.—the southern group.
• CHAPTER XI
•   survey of counties continued.—the central group.
• CHAPTER XII
•   statistics of production.
• CHAPTER XIII
•   internal improvement.—roads and turnpikes.—slackwaternavigation.—ohio and chesapeake canal.—baltimore and ohio railroad.—other railroads.
• CHAPTER XIV
•   mineral wealth.—coal.
• CHAPTER XV
•   iron. — salt.—limestone.—other minerals.
• CHAPTER XVI
•   petroleum.—its wide distribution.—discovery in west virginia.
• CHAPTER XVII
•   how originated.—popular and unpopular theories.
• CHAPTER XVIII
•   where found.—how to find it.
• CHAPTER XIX
•   uses.—quantity used.
• CHAPTER XX
•   well boring.—oil distillation.—refining.
• CHAPTER XXI
•   the era of oil wells.—the burning springs district.—the little kanawha.
• CHAPTER XXII
•   the hughes’ river region.—oil run of goose creek.—horseneck and cow creek.
• CHAPTER XXIII
•   the central and northern oil region.
• CHAPTER XXIV
•   the great kanawha oil basin.—the valleys of the guyandotte and big sandy.
• CHAPTER XXV
•   petroleum companies of west virginia.
• CHAPTER XXVI
•   petroleum prospects.

Author

Jacob Richards Dodge (1823–1902) was born in New Boston, NH. He was the first statistician for the US Department of Agriculture. When he began his work he had one clerk, and when he retired in 1893, there were sixty. He became known for his ability in gathering and presenting statistics. The government sent him on two trips to Europe to observe how other countries gathered data and to share his knowledge. He was given responsibility for compiling agricultural statistics for the Tenth Census in 1880, and in 1889 he was recognized by the international community of statisticians when he received a gold medal at the Paris Exposition for his illustrations of agricultural statistics. After retiring, Dodge became an editor of the Country Gentleman and wrote numerous articles and books. He died at age eighty at Nashua, NH.

Kenneth R. Bailey is professor emeritus at West Virginia University Institute of Technology, where he served as dean of the College of Business, Humanities and Sciences.

Summary

Ninety-nine men entered the cold, dark tunnels of the Consolidation Coal Company’s No.9 Mine in Farmington, West Virginia, on November 20, 1968.  Some were worried about the condition of the mine. It had too much coal dust, too much methane gas. They knew that either one could cause an explosion. What they did not know was that someone had intentionally disabled a safety alarm on one of the mine’s ventilation fans. That was a death sentence for most of the crew. The fan failed that morning, but the alarm did not sound. The lack of fresh air allowed methane gas to build up in the tunnels. A few moments before 5:30 a.m., the No.9 blew up. Some men died where they stood. Others lived but suffocated in the toxic fumes that filled the mine. Only twenty-one men escaped from the mountain.

No.9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster explains how such a thing could happen—how the coal company and federal and state officials failed to protect the seventy-eight men who died in the mountain. Based on public records and interviews with those who worked in the mine, No.9 describes the conditions underground before and after the disaster and the legal struggles of the miners’ widows to gain justice and transform coal mine safety legislation.

Contents

• 0. Introduction
  1. Good Night, Dad
  2. Dangerous History
  3. How Such Things Happen
  4. Rules of Survival
  5. A Beautiful Mine
  6. Methane Madness
  7. Dry and Dusty
  8. Warning Signs
  9. The Last Shift
  10. The Disaster Hits Home
  11. A Paralyzed Community
  12. Bungled Investigation
  13. Widows and Wildcat Strikes
  14. Body Production
  15. In Search of Justice
  16. Three More Men
  17. Hidden Evidence
  18. Ungodly Work
  19. Inundated by Death
  20. Who Can Stop Us?
  21. Business Is Business
  22. Widows’ Last Stand
  23. Acknowledgments
• Appendices
  
  1. U.S. Coal Mine Deaths 1900-2009
  2. Victims of the No.9 Disaster Nov. 13, 1954
  3. Victims of the No.9 Disaster Nov. 20, 1968
  4. Chronology of Disasters and Federal Laws
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • About the Author
• Photographs
  • Emilio Megna and Family
  • Frank Matish and Family
  • Mine Goats
  • Nails Illegally Driven through Shuttle Car Trailing Cable
  • Continuous Mining Machine
  • Methane Check
  • No.1 Fan Shaft and No.9 Preparation Plant
  • No.9 Preparation Plant
  • Shuttle Car
  • Coal Miners in Locomotive
  • Smoke from Llewellyn Portal on November 20, 1968
  • Gary Martin and Bud Hillberry in Rescue Bucket
  • Media Briefing in Consolidation Coal’s Company Store
  • Frank Matish
  • Pregnant Wife of Trapped Coal Miner
  • Woman Waiting for News
  • Red Cross Volunteers
  • Tony Boyle, UMWA President
  • William Poundstone, Consolidation Coal Executive Vice President
  • Bill Evans, Fairmont Times Editor
  • Letters to Mary Matish
  • Widows in Charleston
  • Workers Unseal Fan Shaft
  • Recovery Crew
  • Sara Kaznoski and Mary Matish
  • Uprooted Railway Tracks in Mine
  • Jeep Swept off Mine Railway
  • Larry Layne and Inspectors
  • John Brock and Recovery Team
  • David Mainella, Mine Foreman
  • Fallen Roof in No.9 Mine
  • John Toothman’s Possessions
  • Debris-covered Machine after Explosions
  • Families of Miners Killed
  • John Toothman’s Grave
  • Memorial to No.9 Disaster Victims
• Maps
  • The No.9 Mine in 1954
  • Origin of 1954 Explosion
  • Central Marion County, West Virginia
  • Consolidation No.9, 1968
  • Consolidation No.9, 1Right-6North
  • Consolidation No. 9, 3Right-7North
  • Consolidation No.9, 4Right-8North
  • Consolidation No.9, 5Right-8North
  • Consolidation No.9, Llewellyn Run Shaft
  • Consolidation No.9, 3Right-7South
  • Consolidation No.9, 6Right-7South

Author

Bonnie E. Stewart  is an investigative reporter covering the environment for EarthFix at Oregon Public Broadcasting. Before moving to Portland, she taught journalism at West Virginia University, where she earned tenure and the rank of associate professor. She spent most of her reporting career at the Indianapolis News and the Indianapolis Star and reported in California for the Press-Enterprise in Riverside and was a copyeditor for the Business Journal Serving Greater Sacramento. She earned a master’s degree in English from California State University and earned a George Polk Award for metropolitan reporting and the National Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.

Reviews

“Riveting. Chilling. Revealing. The story of Farmington Mine No.9 belongs on everybody’s book shelf. Seventy-eight miners died during a disaster that rocked West Virginia’s coal fields forty-three years ago—propelling front page headlines across the USA and a trail of safety concerns across the globe. Bonnie E. Stewart, a brilliant investigative reporter and university professor, refused to let the headlines fade away. Hail her tenacity.”
Bob Dubill, former Executive Editor, USA TODAY

“Bonnie Stewart has written a remarkable book which deserves wide circulation. She has exhaustively researched all the documentary evidence, bolstered with scores of personal interviews. Her evidence proves without a shadow of doubt that the seventy-eight coal miners who lost their lives in the November 20, 1968, Farmington Mine Disaster were killed because management ignored repeated personal testimony by the Farmington miners that the mine would blow up unless dangerous methane and huge collections of explosive coal dust were curbed. Those miners who repeatedly pointed out these dangers were humiliated for their efforts, and management in its greed for the almighty dollar put on intense pressure for increased production, even disabling alarm and warning systems. This book also provides fuel for those protesting mountain-top removal, by proving that the pressure for more coal must not over-ride the health and safety of human beings.”
Ken Hechler, former Secretary of State, West Virginia

“With seventy-eight dead and nineteen never recovered, the sheer magnitude of the Farmington mine disaster focused national attention on mine safety deficiencies and led to the enactment of the first major corrective legislation in several generations. In the wake of 2010’s Upper Big Branch disaster, Bonnie Stewart’s comprehensive account is a timely reminder that all mine explosions are preventable.”
Cecil E. Roberts, International President, United Mine Workers of America

Summary

In old England, if a king didn’t like you, he would cut off your head. Now, if they don’t like you, they’ll cut off your project!

As the Johnson Administration initiated its war on poverty in the 1960s, the Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project was established in southern West Virginia. Huey Perry, a young, local history teacher was named the director of this program and soon he began to promote self-sufficiency among low-income and vulnerable populations. As the poor of Mingo County worked together to improve conditions, the local political infrastructure felt threatened by a shift in power. Bloody Mingo County, known for its violent labor movements, corrupt government, and the infamous Hatfield-McCoy rivalry, met Perry’s revolution with opposition and resistance.

In They’ll Cut Off Your Project, Huey Perry reveals his efforts to help the poor of an Appalachian community challenge a local regime. He describes this community’s attempts to improve school programs and conditions, establish cooperative grocery stores to bypass inflated prices, and expose electoral fraud. Along the way, Perry unfolds the local authority’s hostile backlash to such change and the extreme measures that led to an eventual investigation by the FBI. They’ll Cut Off Your Project chronicles the triumphs and failures of the war on poverty, illustrating why and how a local government that purports to work for the public’s welfare cuts off a project for social reform.

Author

Huey Perry, a native of Mingo County, WV, and the son of coal miner, was named Director, Mingo County Economic Opportunity Commission project at the age of twenty-nine. Later, he became the director of the Low-Income Housing Project for Tech Foundation of West Virginia Institute of Technology. He holds a BA from Berea College, KY, and an MA in Political Science from Marshall University, WV, and is an author, entrepreneur, teacher, student, volunteer, chairman, business owner, and farmer.

Jeff Biggers is the American Book award-winning author of The United States of Appalachia, and Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland.

Reviews

“This is a wonderful account of the poverty wars of the 1960s as they unfolded in Mingo County, West Virginia. Inspired (and funded) by the federal war on poverty, the presumably apathetic Appalachian poor mobilized with gusto. And so did the challenged local power structure. Read this book to learn about this moment of American history.”
Frances Fox Piven, professor of political science and sociology, City University of New York, and author of Poor People’s Movements: How They Succeed, Why They Fail

“Huey Perry’s account of the War on Poverty in West Virginia is a classic. Nothing I have read gives such an insider’s account of both of the promise of LBJ’s initiative, and the way this hope was largely subverted by state and local politicians and coal companies. The book is, as well, a quirky, funny page-turner. I was hugely indebted to this book while writing my novel The Unquiet Earth. WVU Press is to be commended for keeping this important account available both to historians and the general public.”
Denise Giardina, author Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth

Praise for the first edition:

“Perry’s story, told simply and without polemics, shows how hard it is to do something that seems simple—get funds into the hands of the poor.”
Edward Magnuson, Time magazine

“This book is one of those unexpected delights that comes along every once in a while, but not often enough.”
 New Republic

Summary

Revised, Updated, and Expanded!

With the immersion method dominating contemporary language learning, the knowledge of traditional grammar is at a low ebb, creating real barriers to any student wanting to learn dead or historical languages. This revised edition of Reading Old English aims to equip readers (advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and autodidacts) with the necessary tools to read the oldest recorded forms of the English language by explaining key language features clearly and methodically, without dumbing down or simplifying any of the core grammatical concepts. It includes a number of helpful exercises, a variety of interesting and unusual Old English texts to translate, as well as appendices covering the basics of traditional grammar and sound changes in Old English, along with an introduction to poetic structure.

Summary

With striking contrasts, bold colors, and powerful textures and lines, Richard Kidwell Miller’s art is abstract, yet integrated and powerful, while sensuous.  Born in the coal-mining region of Fairmont, West Virginia during the Great Depression, Miller displayed artistic talent as a young boy, holding his first solo exhibition by the age of sixteen. As his artistic training progressed, his paintings took on an array of subjects and mediums. He explored realism, abstraction, collage, portraiture, still life and constructed works. The scale of his work varied as well, as he produced huge still life compositions that challenge the very nature of the subject and exquisitely layered canvas on canvas and wood on canvas structures that cross the border between traditional painting and relief sculpture.

In 2004, Richard Kidwell Miller’s work was displayed at West Virginia University. This lushly illustrated book encompasses that exhibit, as curator John A. Cuthbert narrates Miller’s development as a student, artist, and teacher. With over twenty-five beautifully reproduced paintings, spanning over forty years of artistic development, this collection brings attention to the life and work of a contemporary artist.

Contents

• Foreword
• Richard Kidwell Miller: "What's Next?"
• Catalogue of the Exhibition
• Artist's Statment
• Appendices
•   Selected Exhibitions
•   Selected Collections
•   Awards
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements

Author

Richard Kidwell Miller has exhibited work in countless museums, including The Phillips Collection, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture, the Whitney Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. He is a recipient of the National Society of Arts and Letters Lifetime Achievement Award. 

John A. Cuthbert is Curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection and Director of the West Virginia Historical Art Collection at the West Virginia University Libraries.

Reviews

“This is the first book to describe Miller’s oeuvre and it does so handsomely.”
E.H. Teague, University of Oregon

Summary

In this paperback edition of An Appalachian New Deal: West Virginia in the Great Depression, Jerry Bruce Thomas examines the economic and social conditions of the state of West Virginia before, during, and after the Great Depression. Thomas’s exploration of personal papers by leading political and social figures, newspapers, and the published and unpublished records of federal, state, local, and private agencies, traces a region’s response to an economic depression and a presidential stimulus program. This dissection of federal and state policies implemented under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program reveals the impact of poverty and hardship upon political, gender, race, and familial relations within the Mountain State—and the entire nation. Through An Appalachian New Deal, Thomas documents the stories of ordinary citizens who survived a period of economic crisis and echoes a message from our nation’s past to a new generation enduring financial turmoil and uncertainty.

Contents

• Preface to the Paperback Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. On the Eve
• 2. Drought and Depression
• 3. A Search for Order
• 4. A “Jump in the Dark”
• 5. The Blue Eagle
• 6. A Failed Experiment in Federal Relief
• 7. Reshaping the Welfare System
• 8. The New Deal and Mountain Agriculture
• 9. The New Deal and Families in Distress
• 10. Reluctant New Dealers
• Epilogue: From Nearly Perfect to Almost Heaven
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
•  

Author

Jerry Bruce Thomas is professor emeritus of history at Shepherd University. He earned a BA in political science at West Virginia University and, after Peace Corps service in the Dominican Republic, an MA and PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to An Appalachian New Deal, he is the author of An Appalachian Reawakening: West Virginia and the Perils of the New Machine Age, 1945–1972 (also available from West Virginia University Press).

Reviews

“ . . . Thomas’s account of the Great Depression in West Virginia is a welcome edition to the historiography both of the New Deal and of Appalachia.”
Thomas Kiffmeyer, associate professor of history, Morehead State University

“This book is well-researched, well-written, and gives readers unparalleled insight into the New Deal in West Virginia from the perspectives of state leaders, federal officials, and the state’s poor.”
Richard D. Starnes, Creighton Sossomon Associate Professor and Department Chair, Western Carolina University

“Thomas makes a persuasive case that West Virginia, with its chronic poverty, is an important laboratory for examining state and national efforts to end the Great Depression.”
Douglas Carl Abrams, professor of history and chair of the Department of Social Studies Education, Bob Jones University

“Amazing as it may seem, there is no history of the New Deal in West Virginia. With its excellent research and clear narration, this book will stand as the major work on the New Deal in West Virginia for a long time to come. . . . A mature work of scholarship.”
Ronald L. Lewis, professor emeritus of history, West Virginia University

“An important book that anyone interested in Appalachia’s twentieth-century history will want to read. Thomas provides a gracefully written account of a crucial decade in West Virginia history.”
John Alexander Williams, professor of history, Appalachia State University

Summary

The miners’ strike against Pittston Coal in 1989–1990, which spread throughout southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, was one of the most important strikes in the history of American labor, and, as Richard Brisbin observes, “one of the longest and largest incidents of civil disorder and civil disobedience in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century.” The company aggressively sought to break the strike, and workers and their families used a variety of tactics—lawful and unlawful—to resist Pittston’s efforts as the situation quickly turned ugly.

In A Strike like No Other Strike: Law and Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989–1990, Richard Brisbin offers a compelling study of the exercise of political power. In considering the legal significance of the strike, Brisbin asks the larger question of whether even extreme transgression or resistance can fracture the “imagined coherence of the law.” He shows how each party in the strike invoked the law to justify its actions while attacking those of the other side as unlawful. In the end, both sides lost; although the US Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the union, most of the strikers faced elimination of their jobs and an ongoing struggle for pensions and health benefits.

Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1. A Tale of a "Strke like No Other Strike"
• 2. The United Mine Workers and the Legal Contitution of American Labor
• 3. The Legal Complex and Union Power
• 4. Union and Management Define Their Stratedgies
• 5. The Union Plans a Social Drama
• 6. The Union Stages a Social Drama
• 7. Lawbreaking
• 8. Competing Exlanations of Resistance
• 9. The Domestication of Resistance
• 10. Resistance and the Lives of the Strikers
• 11. The Power of Law and the Effectiveness of Resistance
• Notes
• References
• Index

Author

Richard A. Brisbin Jr. is an associate professor of political science at West Virginia University. He is the author of Justice Antonin Scalia and the Conservative Revival.

Reviews

“Richard Brisbin’s excellent book sits at the intersection of law, political science, sociology, and history . . .  Brisbin is utterly convincing in his conclusion that the miners were in the end reduced to Arendtian animals laborans who worked only for sustenance rather than for the joy of creation and integration into a community.”
Julie Novkov, Law and Politics Book Review

“The book brims with insights into the history of the Pittston strike and into a miner's way of life . . . [Brisbin] describes hanging out at the picketing shacks, protests led by Jesse Jackson and Cesar Chavez, militant priests and nuns, and mine takeovers, complete with dancing and live country music.”
Henry S. Cohn, The Federal Lawyer

“Brisbin does an admirable job not only of conveying the historical events and their context, but also of making explicit the evolution and development that occurred on both sides of the struggle.”
Gordon Simmons, Appalachian Heritage

“It is clear that Brisbin’s personal experience with the 'American worker' informs his interpretation of the Pittston coal strike, and he leaves the reader at once inspired and dismayed by the subjectivity of American law.”
Virginia Libraries

“Gives fascinating insights for those involved in directing collective bargaining activities, both as managers and union activists.”
Michael Wald, Monthly Labor Review

“This excellent study describes the 1989–1990 Pittston coal strike . . . Brisbin avoids offering a traditional narrative in favor of a deeper analysis of the dispute that explores the strike’s significance as an exercise in civil disobedience and oppositional culture . . . Brisbin is to be commended for dissecting what happened here with an eye toward its wider implications.”
Richard P. Mulcahy, Journal of American History

“A comprehensive account and analysis of the lengthy Pittston coal strike of 1989—1990, focusing on the effects of the law and its apparatus on the actions of Pittston Coal, the United Mine Workers union, judges, and the miners themselves.”
Choice

“This book tells the story of a very important but little known recent episode in the history of labor and its unfortunate fate at the hands of corporate power. Brisbin presents a powerful but balanced interpretive account informed by cutting edge theory and compelling judgment. I know of no other work that better develops theoretically and illustrates empirically the complex, multi-dimensional workings of law as does Brisbin’s study of the United Mine Workers’ tragic battle with Pittston.”
Michael McCann, University of Washington

“A useful read for any student of the Appalachian region.”
Mark S. Myers, West Virginia History

“Richard Brisbin has done a service in putting together this book . . . a welcome new resource.”
Fran Ansley, Journal of Appalachian Studies

Summary

As the long boom of post–World War II economic expansion spread across the globe, dreams of white picket fences, democratic ideals, and endless opportunities flourished within the United States. Middle America experienced a period of affluent stability built upon a modern age of industrialization. Yet for the people of Appalachia, this new era brought economic, social, and environmental devastation, preventing many from realizing the American Dream. Some families suffered in silence; some joined a mass exodus from the mountains; while others, trapped by unemployment, poverty, illness, and injury became dependent upon welfare. As the one state most completely Appalachian, West Virginia symbolized the region’s dilemma, even as it provided much of the labor and natural resources that fueled the nation’s prosperity.

An Appalachian Reawakening: West Virginia and the Perils of the New Machine Age, 1945–1972 recounts the difficulties the state of West Virginia faced during the post–World War II period. While documenting this turmoil, this valuable analysis also traces the efforts of the New Frontier and Great Society programs, which stimulated maximum feasible participation and led to the ultimate rise of grass roots activities and organizations that improved life and labor in the region and undermined the notion of Appalachian fatalism.

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. A New Machine Age in the Hills
• 2. American Paradox, Appalachian Stereotype
• 3. Civil Rights in the New Machine Age
• 4. Good Intentions: The New Frontier and the War on Poverty
• 5. Raising Hell in the Hills and Hollows: AVs, VISTAs, and Community Action
• 6. From the Silver Bridge to Farmington and Rumblings at the Grassroots
• 7. The Black Lung Association, Miners for Democracy, and the New Feminism
• 8. The Strip Mining Dilemma and a Climactic Debate
• 9. Buffalo Creek: Appalachian Apotheosis
• Epilogue: Another Reawakening?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Author

Jerry Bruce Thomas is professor emeritus of history at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV.

Summary

Roll Out the Carpet is the story of West Virginia University basketball. This comprehensive history chronicles over one hundred seasons of the game, from the early years of the Tri-State and Eastern Conferences, to the golden era of Hot Rod Hundley, Jerry West, and Rod Thorn, to the Mountaineer’s most recent triumphs under coaches John Beilein and Bob Huggins.

For Mountaineers, it’s not just about winning a prize, trophy or title—it’s about the work ethic, pride, and loyalty that embodies the spirit of the state. With unparalleled insider access, alumnus and longtime athletic department official John Antonik details the vibrant history of the players, coaches, and fans that created the finest moments of Mountaineer basketball. These pages overflow with accounts of nail-biting tension leading to buzzer-beating shots, thrilling game-saving moments, and rich, intimate details of the superstar players and coaches that built an institution of gold and blue.

From the first game in 1904 against rival Pitt to West Virginia’s glorious return to the 2010 NCAA Final Four, Roll Out the Carpet celebrates the tradition of Mountaineer basketball. With over five hundred  photographs—many of which have never been published before—and articles of memorabilia from the WVU athletic department, university archives, and personal collections, this book is a must-have for any West Virginia University basketball fan. It’s a great day to be a Mountaineer!

Contents

-1. Foreword by Rod Thorn
0. Introduction: Let's Roll Out the Carpet...
1. The Early Years (1903-1919)
2. S-t-a-d-s-v-o-l-d Spells Stability (1920-1933)
3. The Marshall Plan (1934-1938)
4. Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple (1939-1942)
5. The War Years (1943-1945)
6. Triumph and Tragedy (1946-1950)
7. Picking up the Pieces (1951-1954)
8. A Golden Era (1955-1960)
9. King and His Court (1961-1965)
10. Running Waters (1966-1969)
11. Years of Transition (1970-1978)
12. The Years of the Cat (1978-2002)
13. Beilein Brings 'em Back (2003-2007)
14. Huggs Comes Home (2007-2010)
15. Afterword by Bob Huggins
16. Acknowledgements
17. Bibliography

Author

A native of West Virginia, John Antonik received a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a Master’s Degree in Sports Management from West Virginia University. He is Director of New Media for Intercollegiate Athletics, West Virginia University and author of West Virginia University Football Vault: The History of the Mountaineers.

With a foreword by Rod Thorn and an afterword by Bob Huggins.

Reviews

"...a well-researched work documenting 101 years of WVU lore."
Doug Huff, The Wheeling Intelligencer

"...a must for WVU basketball lovers of the past and present."
Mickey Furfari, The Beckley Register-Herald

"...a veritable encyclopedia, of all things West Virginia basketball."
Colin Dunlap, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Antonik has turned out a fact-stuffed, story-enhanced read..."
Jack Bogaczyk, The Charleston Daily-Mail

"Sports enthusiasts will revel in the 100-plus seasons covered in this book..."
West Virginia Living

Vidcast

Summary

Still Life with Plums is a vibrant collection of short stories that weaves together the outwardly distant lives of several strangers. With heaping doses of dark humor and magical realism, these ten stories enliven a cast of characters carefully speckled throughout the southern portion of the United States. From West Virginians, to Texans and Latinos, Still Life with Plums circles the paths of a Black-Irish West Virginian, a wise-cracking dog groomer, an emasculated husband, a Guatemalan widow, a Japanese-Latin-American poster child from WWII, and a meticulous predator. Marie Manilla’s accessible prose is deceptively layered, as she births and wrestles this quirky ensemble that unflinchingly probes the human psyche, while affirming a concrete connection to a shared place and identity.

Contents

• Hand. Me. Down.
• Childproof
• Grooming
• Amnesty
• Distillation
• Still Life with Plums
• Counting Backwards
• Crystal City
• The Wife You Wanted
• Get Ready

Author

West Virginia native Marie Manilla is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her stories have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Prairie Schooner, Mississippi Review, Calyx Journal, Kestrel, Portland Review, GSU Review, and other journals. She is the author of the upcoming novel Shrapnel, a Fred Bonnie Award for Best First Novel winner.

Reviews

"Marie Manilla’s Still Life With Plums houses in its pages a repository of heartache and joy.  Its soul lies in life’s little moments, somehow still yet perpetually fleeing.  Manilla’s words take flight in the mind and dance “like paper birds in the wind.”  Inevitably, the words will root inside the reader, like the memory of a fossil or a Polaroid picture, and once there, they will cease to be still.  Just as the people in these stories, they will keep on humming."
Glenn Taylor, author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart  and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist

"This mesmerizing collection of stories is full of my favorite things: brilliantly vivid characters, rich cultural textures, bleak humor and surprising story turns. Manilla weaves a kind of literary magic that kept me reading late into the night."
Zoë Ferraris, author of Finding Nouf and City of Veils

"Any reader who cares about mature, intelligent, graceful storytelling should be thinking very seriously about getting Still Life with Plums into their life--buy it, download it, check it out of the library--whatever it takes to be able to read and savor and learn from Marie Manilla's fine and resonant stories."
Richard Currey, author of Fatal Light and Lost Highway

“This is an accomplished collection, displaying a variety of voices, settings, conflicts, and surprising resolutions. The writing is sure, and the stories demonstrate a writer who is confident in her vision.”
Kevin Stewart, author of The Way Things Always Happen Here