Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Appalachian Studies Conference

This last weekend (March 18-21) Mariela and I got the chance to attend the 33rd Annual Appalachian Studies Conference at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, GA. The weekend was a big success.

We were invited by Professor Sue Tallichet from Moorehead State University to speak on a panel with her discussing the book Reformers to Radicals: The Appalachian Volunteer and the War on Poverty by Thomas Kiffmeyer. I spoke on the panel about our project in Floyd County to make connections between radical reform movements of the 60s to what strategies and ideas youth movements are working on today. The panel went really well and we got a lot of feedback from fellow panelists on our project.

Throughout the conference we got to meet and make connections with a lot of really great people who are doing very interesting work. We had 170 printed copies of the final draft of the Floyd County report. Over the weekend we gave out about 25-30 to various groups and Mariela took the rest back to Kentucky to be sent on to the Floyd County Chapter for them to distribute and use as they find useful. In addition to the conference KFTC distributed copies of the report to legislators during their lobbying week in Washington D.C. earlier this month. It's clear that the report is definitely getting out there and is starting to gain a certain amount of visibility, which is exciting news.