Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

George Warren Interview

BECKY BAILEY: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center. Friday, June 13...July 13, 1990. I'm interviewing George Warren, a local radio personality. Um...Mr. Warren, my first question for you is, can I have your full given name and will you tell me when and where you were born.

GEORGE WARREN: Well, my name is George Dewey Warren, Jr. And I was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, February the sixth, 1937.

B: Okay. And can I have your parents names?

GW: My uh...father's name, he was a Sr. I'm a Jr.

B: Okay.

GW: And my mother's name is Jula Pearl Warren.

B: Okay. And were they originally from that part of Illinois?

GW: Uh...my father was from Paintleyville, Illinois. And my mother was from Leadwood and Irondale, Missouri. Two little mining towns in the Ozarks.

B: Okay. Do you know how they met?

GW: No.

B: Okay. Would you know their uh...birth dates off hand?

GW: My mother was uh...born in 1898, May the ninth.

B: And your father?

GW: And my father was born August the twenty, I believe it was the twenty-second of the same year.

B: What um...do you know about your grandparents on both sides?

GW: I don't know anything about my father's side. My mother's, I know a little bit about them. They were from a place called Kenswick, Missouri, about thirty minutes outside of St. Louis, Missouri. And, uh...he was a barber. He was a sheriff. Kind of politically motivated. Back then, the sheriff was kind of the custodian of the town, you now, and of course, I know my grandmother was just a housewife.

B: Okay. Do you now anything about how your...your family came to...to originate from the Mid-west and most people moved to the Mid-west?

GW: Well, my...mother's side was from the area of the Ozarks and possibly down into Oklahoma. My great grandmother was an Indian squaw and my father's folks were German, But now, how they ended up there, got there. I don't know.

B: Okay. Do you know any stories about that great-grandmother that was an Indian?

GW: Not...not just hearsay, not enough to really talk. You hear all kinds of Indians stories and this that and the other.

B: Okay. Um...so, do you...do you know, say, what um...conditions your parents grew up in? Did they grow up on a farm or, like say your father, do you know if he grew up on a farm?

GW: I don't about, I would suppose that my father grew up in a farming area. I don't know that he grew up on a farm or not. Illinois, Central Illinois, Southern Illinois, was pretty well flat. You get down into the lower part of Illinois around Boxtown and um...Steelvillle, Illinois uh...Milstot and area like that, it's a coal mining area and it is anthracite, it's hard coal. It's not like here. My mother uh...family was raise I would say basically at the time when they weren't the poorest that ever lived but they weren't the richest either, I mean, just typical working people. However, my mother's mother and father, my grandparents on my mother's side died at a fairly early age and from what I understand, then the children did become very um...needy, and more or less raised themselves. Two boys and two girls.

B: Okay. Alright. What did your father do for a living?

GW: My father was a...worked for a (unintelligible) Chemical Company in East St. Louis, Illinois.

B: And what did he do?

GW: He was uh...I can't really...I don't really know. He worked uh...kind of a laborer. I mean, I don't know exactly what he did. He worked in the chemical end of it, you know, I do know that uh...there was some risk. They said there was some of the departments that was so old uh...said that if the sun rays would hit it, it would explode, I mean, it was just, and I do know that chemicals, my father got to where he could pull his jaw teeth with his fingers and the fellow that he worked with, his hair turned green. So, I mean, it was uh...today, today's standards like Ashland Oil, they would have sued them for millions of dollars. Back then, they was glad to have a job, you know. If your hair turns striped, you still stay at work, so.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Um...What level of education did your parents have? Do you know?

GW: I would say my mother probably had, basically, and eighth grade education and probably the same for my...my father and I come from a broken home, I don't know, after I was nine years old, I didn't know anything about my dad. But the whole time I was with mom, I would say, basically, my father's probably about in the same shape. I daresay they (had) high school education.

B: Okay. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

GW: I had one half sister. One half sister. We have the same father, different mothers.

B: Okay. Do you know when your parents had married?

GW: No, not really.

B: Okay. What um...I don't really know much about where you're from so I'm trying to judge how big of a town you had come from. Was it a city or?

GW: East St. Louis, Illinois is uh...it's not like Matewan and North Matewan, East St. Louis is on the Illinois side. St. Louis is on the Missouri side. Separated by the Mississippi. And I would say that when I lived there that probably, somewhere between a hundred and twenty thousand or a hundred and fifty thousand uh...residents. But now, the, another thing. I lived outside of the city limits. I lived in a little town called Dupo, Illinois. D,U,P,O. Three miles from Kakohika, Illinois. Kakohika, Illinois is the Indian establishment. The oldest settlement in the state of Illinois. Kakohika, that's where Chief Pontiac was killed.

B: Okay. Can you spell that?

GW: K,A,K,O,H,I,K,A.

B: Okay. Um...so did you grow up...you probably grew up in a suburban settlement.

GW: Yeah. I...I lived in an area where you could look in the sky-line an see St. Louis, now you can stand there and see the arch. You can see the St. Louis Cardinals uh...Stadium, but yet it's unincorporated, you could have a cow in the front yard, if you wanted to you know, ain't nobody can say anything to you. On the Illinois side uh...basically, in St. Louis, you have a lot of factories, industries, uh...a few doctors. McDonnell Aircraft is there. Of course, and they've had several contracts with the Air Force and that would entely(?) their engineers, lawyers, this type thing. Otherwise you were a foundery man, like my father. Worked in a (unintelligible) Chemical Company there and they were...there was some founderies different places.

B: Okay. So after your parents did...did they actually divorce? Okay. Um...and this happened when you were nine?

GW: I was nine years old. My mother and I were together. My father left. I never saw him no more 'til I was eighteen.

B: Okay. So did...how did your mother support you?

GW: She worked. She worked. Had to go to work at a, uh...aeronautical school, Parks Air College, which is a branch of St. Louis University. And she worked in the kitchen there, where the boys were learning to fly. They came from all over. There was Americans and Japanese and Chinese and Indians and Indian. She worked there for seventeen years.

B: Did she ever remarry?

GW: No.

B: But your father did?

GW: Um-hum.

B: And you have a half sister?

GW: My father married again, well, of course my half sister is older than I am. She is uh...twelve years older than I am.

B: Oh, okay.

GW: My father was married eight times. (laughing)

B: Okay.

GW: I just throwed that in there for...

B: Okay. So where was your mother in this ranking? Do you...do you know?

GW: Seventh.

B: She was seventh. Okay.

GW: Almost left out.

B: Um...do you know anything about the religious background of your family?

GW: Yeah. My mother was more or less a independent Baptist, or you might say a branch of the Southern Baptist. And my father, the same, what time he went to church.

B: Okay. So you know that your father's family had some German background. Do you know anything about your mother?

GW: Well, uh...no. Just the Indian part. I couldn't tell you that uh...

B: What was her maiden name? Do you know?

GW: Mitner.

B: Mitner. Um...when did you go to school?

GW: Hum?

B: How old were you? Was there uh...now children go to kindergarten in a regular school system.

GW: NO, I went to school, I guess I started in about '45. '44. '45.

B: Okay. And I know you mentioned off tape you'd gone to uh...bible college. Did you...did you finish high school?

GW: No. Yeah. I graduated in '54 from Dupo, Illinois. Dupo High.

B: Okay. Okay.

GW: I went to Midwest Bible Missionary Institute in St. Louis.

B: Okay. And was this a uh...nondenominational school or was this...

GW: Well, it was nondenominational but it pretty well had a doctoral statement, I mean, uh...it pretty well knew who was goin' and what they believed, I mean, it wasn't, anybody could go there but basically they had the one belief if they went there, they'd be going to their own school. Do you follow me?

B: Un-hun. What kind of classes did you take at this school?

GW: Greek. Hebrew. Harmoninics um...just general bible. You see, when a person goes to Bible school, it doesn't teach them how to preach but it does teach them how to study.

B: Okay. Just study the Bible in particular. Right. did you have um...theology classes?

GW: Un-hun. We took different denominations. We would...we would for instance, when I was in grade school, I took little Hiatus from the regular school and went to parochial school. I went probably three months to a Catholic school. Took the Catechism and stuff just to see what I was, what was goin' on. And in Bible school, we studied all the different denominations. Even some of your cults, you know. and uh...just so that, you do that mainly so if I'm talking with you and you're something besides the typical Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian Luther, I knew pretty well what you believed, you know.

B: Un-hun. Was there uh...what about the training of your teachers. Was there any bias say, against some of the non-christian religions that you studied? Did you...did you pick...

GW: I suppose there were but you didn't uh...probably they were if you'd ask them but they didn't make it a habit of tellin' you unless you just ask them why, what was wrong with Islam or...uh...course in my book, I don't know your denomination, but uh...in my book, uh...Jehovah's Witness, is a cult to me, now this is my opinion, that's what your asking, right?

B: Right.

GW: They're a cult but uh...I put eight years in the Navy so that you could believe that way if you wanted to. It's a free country, so that's what I'm sayin'. But the school that I went to, they wouldn't come right out and tell you unless if you was to ask them there what your thoughts were about seventh day adventist(?) or something, you know, some other, besides what you were. They...they'd tell you but they didn't come right out and just say, don't worry, don't go there.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Alright, you've mentioned off tape that you'd met a girl from this area when you were in Bible college. Is this the same college?

GW: Um-hum.

B: Do you remember her name?

GW: Yes. Georgiana Lockhart. She married a young man who was also in the same school by the name of Joseph Toates. T,O,A,T,E,S. And they went and graduated and now they are the largest distributors for Tupperware in the state of South Carolina, based in Greenesboro.

B: Un-hun.

GW: He took Greek and Hebrew to be able to sell tupperware. Sometimes, it's (unintelligible).

B: Now, you said, when you lived um...at this college, did you, you become a minister?

GW: Uh...I would have if I had finished. I was a more a youth, more or less a youth director and I was Camp Evangel youth director and camp caretaker at Fedscreek, Kentucky, well, actually, Biggs, Kentucky for eight years.

B: Okay. Okay. Um...would you tell me on tape how you came to this area?

GW: I came to the camp, from St. Louis. I was working in a warehouse. A shoe warehouse. Endicott Johnson was a shoe jobber out of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Endicott, New York and uh...this job came open and I felt that I had, and I also had a child evangelism, I didn't, my wife did, a child evangelism bookstore in St. Louis. and uh...we sold my house when I was twenty-one years and we loaded up my red head and me, my labrador retriever and all the other junk we could find that nobody wanted and brought it down here with us.

B: YOu said when you were working, you were a shoe jobber?

GW: I worked for a shoe...it was a shoe jobber warehouse. We..we...we didn't make the shoes. The factory sent us the shoes and we distributed them.

B: I was just wondering what that phrase meant?

GW: It was a jobber outlet.

B: Okay. And what, when you say your wife's store was a child evangelism...

GW: Child evangelism.

B: What's that mean?

GW: It was a Bible bookstore and we worked with children. Child evangelism, basically is what the uh...organization was but we had a bookstore and we sold pretty well, all of the books, Bibles, hymnals, and literature from most churches. Baptist, Methodist, and if we didn't have it, we could order it for them.

B: Okay. Then you came to Biggs, Kentucky?

GW: I came to Biggs, Kentucky, March uh, the seventh, 1958. Two weeks after the 1958 school bus disaster in Prestonsburg when the twenty-seven kids drown. Remember that?

B: I remember hearin' of it. Okay. Alright.

GW: Goin' on my thirty third year here, now, so I think I'm gonna like it.

B: I think so. What um...now this area of Kentucky, is...is this in ways, still considered Appalachia?

GW: Yeah. You know, we think of Appalachia as uh...basically here, but you're talkin' about Appalachia, probably, most likely clear down into Georgia, aren't you?

B: As far as I know, I've heard that, so.

GW: THere used to be a time you told them you was from Kentucky, and they would say, poor fellow, we feel sorry for him but the eventually when the Kennedys' come along and started the youth corp, and started talking about Appalachia, now you can tell them you're from Appalachia and they think of Washington. (laughing)

B: Right. Okay. Um...what kind of uh...economic background did...did the children at this youth camp fit that you...

GW: Very poor. That's what we do. We offered them free way. You could pay to go, but basically, they came by working correspondence courses and saying Bible verses. If they said so many, they got a free week of camp. And we uh...back before the Supreme Court got really jelly backed, and cut out school. I'm very biased. Can you tell that? THey used to be able to teach in school but now all these fellows are job scared, you see, uh..they cut out this, it's against the law, can't teach them Bible school now. Wait 'til they go to prison and then the Gideons give them a Bible, which I can't understand, but that's the way it is, anyway, a lot of these kids, the only Bible they ever heard, or anything they ever heard about God was in Bible school. Other than their daddy cursing. So a lot of these kids, they didn't know what you was talkin' about and we run into kids every day that are married and have kids and say, "I remember you when you used to come to our school." Now, I didn't go to the school but my ex-wife did along with the Morningstars that accidentally started, they did accidentally, I mean actually started the radio station so the kids, they know, they remember this. That's my point that sticks in my mind. I never will forget that. It will have to die out.

B: Okay. Alright. Well, what brought you to the Matewan area, specifically?

GW: Mr. Morningstar owned the radio station and he wanted me to come over here, I actually came to the radio station in, probably late '59 or early '60, I was working part time. And then I was working for a logger, a logging company up in Hurley, Virginia, too, (unintelligible) is what it's called. And uh...Fred wanted me to come over there and work, I tried it. I was kind of scared of it. He passed away and his nephew, by marriage, had the radio station and he wanted me to help him so I, and I was getting tired of loggin' during that time, so I was more or less uh...drafted and agreed to the draft to come over and I've been here ever since. Unfortunately, Matewan will never be the same again.

B: Okay. Um...well, you definitely, I have dated someone who worked in radio and you definitely have a radio voice. Did you have to have any training for that or...

GW: I never had one day of training.

B: So you've been blessed with this voice from the beginning.

GW: Everything that I ever studied for, I never went into and everything that I didn't study for is what I'm doing. I was in Missionary Aviation Fellowship. Jungle training uh...I didn't do that. Flying a plane. I didn't do that. Never studied for radio. That's what I've done for thirty years.

B: Well, you said you'd been in the service, when was this?

GW: I was in the Navy, yeah, from '54 to '62.

B: Okay.

GW: Got mad at my girlfriend and joined. Three days later, I knew I'd made a mistake.

B: Un-hun. Okay. So, did you serve time in the reserves because...

GW: Yeah, that's what it was. Weekend warrior. One night a week.

B: Were you still, I...I...I know I've seen a special on it um...during the um...Berlin Wall crisis, the original...

GW: We were on standby.

B: You were on standby.

GW: THey told us to have a clean pair of shorts and a toothbrush ready to go. Scared me to death. I was used to eatin' Mom's food and not the Navy's.

B: How did you um...um...did you feel any reservations about being in the military. Given your religious background?

GW: No. No.

B: Why's that?

GW: I felt that uh...well I, I'm not, I was never, never did I think I would ever be a consciences. Uh...I would give my life today to let my boys live as long as I have. And also, I would take a life today if I thought it meant losing our freedom. That's how offset I am for America. You don't see anybody leaving here but you see them comin' in boats and flyin' in and stowin' away on ships and then planes, you know, so we're not perfect but we're the best.

B: Un-hun. Okay.

GW: THere's a biased opinion.

B: Before I cut the tape off, I was asking you some about your military experience. Um...when you became involved in the radio station, was that a Christian station at the time?

GW: Yes.

B: Okay. Do you know ho long it's been in existence?

GW: Since December the second, 1951. That's when I went on the air. Prior to that would give or take a year to six months getting it, preparing it to go on the air.

B: Un-hun. Okay. And you said the Morningstars?

GW: Fred Morningstar and his wife, Florence. They're from Michigan. They were from Michigan.

B: Okay. How different was radio in the '50's from how it is today? Was it regulated the same way?

GW: Yeah. More so.

B: Okay.

GW: It was regulated more, but I, what I chuckle about there, I was thinking of the equipment, I mean, it was like a model A Ford and today's Cadillac, you know.

B: Un-hun. Okay. How um...how big of an operation has it been, I mean, did uh...did you do the repairs on the equipment and things like that?

GW: No, I had an engineer all the time.

B: Okay. An how did they decide that they wanted it to be a Christian station?

GW: Well, Fred Morningstar was a preacher and he came down here as a home-type missionary and he felt the only way they'd ever reach all the people would be to, well, with radio. And you know, it was different then than it is now. Uh...there's still christian radio stations all over the country but uh...people that listen now, listen because they want to. Used to be it was a captivated audience. You had no choice. And that's good and that's bad. You know. Um...but uh...personally, I have my reservations about ever starting another christian radio station even if I was a preacher. Like I said, if you've got a christian radio station, then you've got the people listening to it that wants to listen to it. The people that need to listen to it aren't gonna be. Do you have to use a little discretion there. You've got to be more or less, all thing to all people. Which means you might not play the kind of music you want, but you got to do that to attract somebody else and then you throw something at them every once in awhile and let them think a little bit, you know, cause um...that's just the way it is, I mean I'm gettin' to where I'll be preachin' here in a little bit, I better shut up.

B: That's quite alright. Um..I was just going to ask you, when you said before it started out as like a captive audience. How, what other, was there any competition?

GW: NO. THat's what I mean. There was a few stations. There was probably one in Grundy, one in Pikeville, and they're far, and that's your trouble, see, this was an AM station and that's your trouble now. That's what's wrong with AM the spectrum or the dial is full uh...used to be, you wanted to listen to radio, you had to listen to me cause there wasn't anything else to listen to. People don't do that now. You turn your radio dial 1/8 of an inch away on either side of the dial from us and you've got one, maybe two other stations. So, I'm sayin' that, you know, that's it.

B: Now there's an FM station that's also runnin' out of there.

GW: Out of our sales.

B: Right. Okay. Now that's not a Christian station is it?

GW: No, well, it's owned by us but we met, wanted to meet the market, there again, is people we weren't reachin' when we play country and southern time gospel quartet uh...a lot of people don't like that. A lot of people, it's not they don't like it. They just want to hear something else. So we felt that the teenage group, we needed to meet the market, incidentally, there's no other locally. Now, that's not saying they weren't getting any rock and roll music in here, but it was comin' from some distance, I'm thinking of J104 out of Bluefield, we're talking about a hundred miles from here. That way you travel. Probably seventy four miles. So that, we thought that was a need and also that there'd never been a twenty-four an hour station so we rock twenty-four hours a day.

B: Okay. Being in radio, as well as being a Christian, how do you feel about the current controversy over obscenities?

GW: I think I'm a hypocrite. I don't play it myself uh...my other jocks do. You take, of course, well there's a lot of the stuff that we try to delete uh...I think basically, it's right to delete it, but if you come along and say you want to hear, and the silent minority, is, or the vocal minority is what's carrying the load right now. Most people don't like it, they don't say nothing. To answer your question, I don't like it and personally, I would like to get out of it. because I cannot say, that's one reason for years I never aired beer commercials. I can't say, "get you a six pack down at Joe's," and then say there was four people killed this weekend and you know, at least two of them was killed from drinking. I just can't handle that.

B: Un-hun. Okay. So you definitely feel the pull of...of your religion.

GW: Yeah. Not only (unintelligible) and country, it's uh...well, for instance uh...

B: I wanted to clarify what we discussing and I was explaining on tape I wanted to get your feelings on the first amendment rights because now, there's president Wrights question on the uh...Christian side as well as, the obscenity problems. I know, many Christian groups are criticized for being anti-semitic and some of their publications and some of their broadcasts so I...

GW: I'm not anti-semitic. I don't mean to criticize any group or anything, but I think our first amendment and all of our rights have gotten us in trouble. Uh...for instance, if you don't want to go to my church or if you don't want to go to a church, that's fine.

But I don't think that we ought to shut all the churhces [sic] cause you feel that way and I'm speaking of a Nativity scenes in courthouses and schoolyards. If you don't like it, fine. Personally, I don't like a Christmas tree in my living room. Thirty two dollar a square foot carpet and you bring an old tree in your yard, you know what I mean, in your house and all. But I don't preach on it, doin' away with Christmas trees. I'm just telling you what I don't like.

B: Well, what uh..what do you think about the mixture of the Nativity scene and then some of the Jewish symbols for Hannukah?

GW: That does not bother me. This is a free country. They have their right. I have mine. But now, I think I'm wrong if I said we have the manger scene and that's the way it's gonna be and no Jewish emblems cause I have a lot of Catholic friends, I have a lot of black friends and uh...well, I hope I do anyway, I think I do and I...I think that's uh...you know, because a lot of (tape cuts off)

GW: Think it was because of all the problems.

B: Okay.

B: (tape cuts off) Just to um... to backtrack out of some of our opinion questions and get into um...Matewan, persay, um...what was your first impression of Matewan? When did you first see Matewan?

GW: Uh...June, of '56.

B: Okay. Now, what were your first impressions of this area?

GW: Horrible. I couldn't believe that uh...well, first of all, when I come across the Delorme bridge at Freeburn, I'm used to goin' from one state to the other over there a mile and a half bridge, Mississippi. I'd blink my eyes and we was in another state and they said it was a river. It was a creek to me. And most of the time it is, course, when it's flooding, it's a river but uh...a course, being raised close to the city, you know, that's uh...I can answer that better now than I could then. I didn't think much then but I would...I would for instance, I would go back Illinois, and St. Louis for anything. Nothing. I would want to go further South. I wouldn't want to go any further than, but uh...things have improved or either I've relaxed my standard or something other.

B: I was just interesting cause the...the fifties, the fifties and part of the sixties would have been about the time when a lot of people say would have been the peak era of the town before...

GW: Yeah, uh...I got here right after the peak era. I think the big flood was in '57 and I think when the streets were full, and they were running buses uh...six and ten a day from here to Red Jacket and Williamson. Was probably two or three years before I got here. So I really can't...

B: So it already slid off then...

GW: Yeah. Yeah, they'd already, I believe shut down Red Jacket and they were feeling a slump in the business.

B: Okay. Okay. What were your impressions of the town, I mean, did it seem as if the town's economy then revolved around coal or?

GW: Yeah. a little. Yeah a little coal mining dirty town uh...you'd come into town and uh...you know, drive real slow and the town was bigger. If you went through fast and blinked you missed it and it took me awhile to get used to that, oh, the advantages of things, for instance, when I first came to Camp Evangel, Biggs Kentucky, I had to go twenty-one miles one way to the closest phone or I had to go eight miles the other way to the closest phone. It was a company phone. I could use it if they liked me and they were open. I mean, no phones. You had to go uh...twelve miles to a doctor. These are the kind of stories that you hear from your grandparents and I had heard, all of the sudden, I'm there. I mean.

B: Okay. Um...once you became involved in the uh...radio business, how much of a tie was there, say to the radio station during election time? did the politicians, do, do they advertise and...

GW: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

B: And campaign through that.

GW: Basically, course you see in Mingo and Pike, we are very much politically oriented and we are basically Democrats. I am a registered Democrat. Incidentally, I'm not happy with the party. I want that to be known. Not happy with the party.

B: Okay. Was this locally or nationally.

GW: Yeah. All the way around. If Michael Dukakusis [sic] that ran for President of the United States and our present governor Gaston Caperton is the best that we can come up with, we're hurting and I hope somewhere he gets to hear my statement on that. It's just one statement but I'm really, he has proved that if you got money, anybody can be president, anybody can be governor. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington wouldn't have a chance in this day and time.

B: Okay. Is part of your, I know it's interesting, during the Reagan years, Reagan did get a lot of the Christian vote that would have, they would have been Democrats, they had been Democrats all their lives because of his reinfection of supposedly Christian issues into the politics that he drafted a lot of people.

GW: What your saying there is that he didn't necessarily drafted it but he went along with the lines of our belief. Not just mine, for instance, didn't he institute capital punishment? Wasn't he the one who help get it back in along with maybe Jimmy, Jimmy Carter, I mean, you know, and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth uh...and that's a good philosophy to live until it comes home. I have to be honest. If it's my boy, I'm gonna have to be for my boy. But you take a young man that goes out and murders an old couple, rapes a girl, kills her, uh...and to give him life. That doesn't bring that girl back, of course if you take his life, that doesn't bring it back either but at least he's paid. That's...that's the biggest payment he can make uh...Reagan come along with abortions. It's amazing how you can people can say, well, a woman has a right to do with her body whatever she wants, and basically she does, but if your gonna dance, you got to pay the fiddler and if you get out and mess around and you have a baby, you're gonna have to answer for that. Now, we've got abortion clinics, if you are raped or molested or incest, I think that's time for an abortion, but to use it in a form of a birth control, I cannot agree with that and to answer another question on that, it's now assumingly where if I go out and kill a baby, I get time, I get put in jail. But if I get a girl pregnant, they kill a baby, the state pays for it. I can't understand that.

B: Okay. Alright. Well, on the local level, with politics, um...you probably been have at least become aware of, well, not become aware of, but become acquainted with some of the more infamous and illustrious politicians in Mingo County um...

GW: Past and present.

B: Past and present. Um...what...what role, if any did the radio play in, how much leeway did you all have in saying or revealing that so and so was corrupt? I mean, did you play any role in it?

GW: We didn't do any editorials. We did do news. We are subscribed to the United Press International and whenever they send a story down, we'd take it as truth. I mean, if it is and it happens to be your brother, they said he robbed a bank or he sold his political job, we air it. Now, if there's any suing to do, we can run a retraction on the news story but you'll have to sue United Press. Now, to answer your question, we run the stories they sent. Same way with our mine strikes in this area. We are trying to cut down the middle course that was the news too, but we were right here in the middle of things. We did not take sides. My thought on this was, "we're gonna be here when the strike is over with," the state police and other people is gonna be gone. So we, listened to the non-union fellows, we listened to the union. We have talk shows. We had them then. If they wanted to uh...challenge each other on the air. If they's one of them wanted to have (unintelligible), that was alright. All we tried to do and I think most companies around here, Massey, and the non-union will tell you that that we...we tried to be as straight as we could. I didn't necessarily agree with everything that was happening but that's the rule we had to play because that's our job was to give the news. Not to interpret it or not to try to make it one side or the other.

B: So when you all never felt any flack so to speak from any of the local politicians?

GW: No, not really. In fact, I felt left out sometimes uh...I would ask, ask some of the past for instance, Johnny Owens, who is now in prison for selling his job, I would ask him to come and be on the talk show and he would say, "I don't have nothing to say or you will put me on the spot." I've ask several court- house fellows that were in...in office then and they didn't have anything to say and I always told them, "Hey, you've been in office twenty-five years and you don't have anything to say." I'd talk about my job, or your wife, or my garden, I'd have something to say. What do you use next election time if you don't have anything to say and you've been in office twenty-five years? You know, that doesn't make sense. I knew where they were coming from, I don't know whether they was gonna tell on themselves or...or what but that's, we tried to give everybody a chance.

B: Well, coming in from the outside and living here as long as you have now, um...what do you think are the good things about this community?

GW: I think we live in the Grand Canyon of the East. I think it's beautiful. Like Breaks Interstate Park. Have you had the opportunity to be there? Uh...only trouble with us here is we have inherited like welfare. We have great grandparents here who have been on welfare and their children have been on it and their grandchildren have been on and their grandchildren that will be on it. We have throwed trash at each other. We have, I've throwed my things in your yard or in the creek and on the river banks. If I get through with my washer or dryer, it belongs in the creek. That's just natural. You've got to school these people and I've watched them. I don't think it's gonna work. I think it's gonna have to be schooled and die out. WE've got a certain amount of people here that's never, they don't believe in land fills, they don't want to pay nobody seven dollars a month to haul their trash off, they like old cars settin' in the front yard up on blocks. They use it to haul hay in. To haul hay in, that the dogs have cats and kittens in it and the roosters roost in it and uh...Uncle Bill got killed in it, we can't get rid of that car, am I making myself clear.

B: Yes sir.

GW: I mean, uh...what we call it so to speak in a sense of local colonialism. And we need to do something about this life. They'll say, well, my brother moved to Chicago. You'll know when you get there. His car's in the front yard on jacks. You know what I mean. This doesn't happen. I mean, you can, you know. And we have some of the evening posts and a lot of these different magazines come in and want to take pictures of us, you know, money is not a problem. Uh...being able to..to control it is a problem. These men that work in union mines make good money. They might waste. They might drink it, they might gamble it. That's not the local, that these people need to be schooled. The reason I say that is this, you always see an old house with a woman and a maytag washing machine and three little dirty kids and two husbands. That's Appalachia. But they won't go across the street and take the ultra modern electric home with the Lincoln settin' out in the drive way, do they?

B: Um...I was gonna ask you, a lot of the negativism that's directed at Appalachia, is directed at uh...the fatalism or the negativism that people from the outside see in the religion.

GW: Well, that...see, if I...I agree with you....I'm agreein' with you but if I was to start talking about some of it now, I would become biased.

B: Why is that?

GW: Well, because I don't live with stinkhammers.

B: Okay.

GW: Maybe you do. I'm like Wendy Bagwell had the song out, The Lord Didn't Tell Me To Pick Up One and I Ain't Goin' To.

B: Have um...probably, with...with the uh...radio station, you probably run into a lot of people in different beliefs from this area uh...

GW: Darling, with the radio station, I have run into everything. You would not believe it. Go ahead.

B: Okay. Um...Do you see, in say, in some of the uh...old timey churches in this area. Not necessarily your...your more well known, say, not the Methodist or the Presbyterian, how many other Separatist type churches um...do you see a fatalism or negativism that preaches poverty, ignorance, that kind of, I mean...

GW: I don't think it preaches poverty but I think a certain amount of it is ignorance. They never seem to grow. They never seem to do any better, I mean, now that's my opinion. I'm not saying that's right but I mean, uh...all you got to do is go to some of these funerals around here. Grandpa's died and that's bad enough, but they preach, "grandpaw ain't comin' home no more. Grandpaw's gone," I mean, you know, they just dwell on it, a funeral lasts three hours. There's no sense in that. That, to me is...is...something needs to be done about that, 'course, it's a free country and that's their belief.

B: Un-hun.

GW: But uh...can you imagine, now, with the weather being a hundred degrees, being in the church house with Grandpaw gone for three hours? And you've been up with him two days, two nights at the church, I mean, you know, just happens. I've got too (unintelligible) though.

B: Um...I was just uh...wondering about uh...the state of education this area. It seems that this area in the same time has an aging population. It seems the very old, the disabled, very small minority of men that are working and are very young. What do you see happening for the young people in this area? Do you...

GW: They teach the three R's. Reading, writing, and a route to Columbus. They teach them how to leave here. They don't teach them that, but there's no opportunities here. And the reason there's no opportunities here is for the simple reason there's nothing to come back to here. We're politically motivated here. We don't have to give you nothing cause you're raining on our party. Now a lot of people don't agree with this but for instance, you haven't been here to see this, but theres been five miles of corridor G on Route 119, Williamson to the stone approach developing the four lane highway. Go over there and look and see where the business are. Yes. Five miles did all this. What would thirty miles do. What I'm saying is, we've got Hardee's, we've got Rax, we've got K-Mart, you don't see this on the side where the Route 49, and I'm not throwin' in up on Williamson, this five miles of double lane highway has done all this. Growing is the name of the game.

B: Alright. Um...back track out of that for a minute, you were living here during the '77 flood?

GW: Right,.

B: What are your memories of that?

GW: Well, we were on the air that night, course we had special, had to get special permission uh...to be on the air but we were on the air until a house came down the Tug River and took the bridge out which took the lights out which shut down the whole, and of course, water got into the substation down here at Merrimac uh...horrible. Two hundred million dollars worth of damage. Wasn't anywhere to buy...people had money but they didn't have anything to buy. No clothes, no food. No gas.

B: How did you all, when you say you had to get special permission to remain on the air that night, why is that?

GW: Well, cause we're a daytime station. We were dusk to dawn. 1360 AM, there's only thirty-eight of those stations in United...as last count, thirty-eight in the United States we're not allowed to do that except for terrific emergencies. Something like the Matewan Bank that's made out of stone. If it starts floatin' then, you can stay on. And that's what we did cause we didn't get to, at night, we sent a telegram and let them know what night we were on. You're not allowed to use any advertising or anything. It's just strictly, you know so and so needs a boat. So and so needs a helicopter and so and so needs a you know, strictly emergency work.

B: How important um...did the radio actually end up being in...in say, in the rescue efforts or any of the...

GW: Well, we informed people uh...the coal company at Red Jacket, Frank Hearn, had a four seat ranger jet helicopter that he come over to see me with. He said, this, "well I can do anything for you that you need," so we went different places. Hauled in food, supplies, clothing, blankets. You'll see a lot of people after you have a disaster, they want to bring in clothes for three months. Now, you need clothes for the first two days, from them on, you need water, you need clothes, I mean uh..food, mops. And uh...so, we, in order to do this, Canney Branch Coal Company, at Phelps, Kentucky, two boys, Tab and Mix McCoy own it or did then, they had a diesel generator. They went across the back hills of Kentucky and pulled it over to the station and we operated the transmitter and one light bulb with a diesel generator for about four days. They furnished the generator and the gas and the oil.

B: With the um...relief efforts, what is you opinion of...of how long it took and how it was handled?

GW: Uh, we at this time, I got in trouble for mouthing off on, uh..Governor Julian Caroll, of Kentucky, then was somewhere down around um...I can't think where he was. Somewhere in the middle of the state playin' golf and he didn't know we had a flood and uh...Jay Rockefeller was governor of West Virginia and we had a flat spot just on the Kentucky side, where they're building the mall, and that was my little airport. We had army helicopters, we had this private coal company and there was some boys there by the name of Epling. Epling brothers had a little trailer there and I broke into that and used it as an office until they got there. I thought they might put me in jail, but they didn't see fit to do nothing. And they brought us uh...Wayne T. Rutherford's office brought us food um...commodity food, you know, mops, brooms, and stuff and I thought it was handled very carelessly because uh...only after I made some strong remarks to the governor did he fly into Buskirk. And uh...

B: Was this Rockefeller or Caroll?

GW: Caroll No. Rockefeller, he didn't know there was a river there at this time. He...he took care of West VIrginia and Kentucky, I have to say that. A lot of times I disagree with what Jay's done, things he's said, but had it not been for Jay Rockefeller, there's a lot of us boys on the Kentucky side um...people would have starved to death cause he..he didn't let the river get this way. He landed over there and brought food and clothing and you know, sanitation needs that people needs and stuff.

B: Un-hun. Okay. So the Kentucky side really didn't pick up it's end for awhile?

GW: It's reported to me that a well known business CPA Accountant in Pike County called the Governor's office and asked for the Governor and they said he wasn't there and he said, well, we've had a flood and blah...blah...blah... and he told them where it was and supposedly, and I can get the man that said this, that Julian Caroll's aide said, "nowhere does Kentucky border West VIrginia. We don't know what you're talking about," so he just hung up. So I got on the air and I told them that WHJS was founded in 1951, We Hail Jesus Christ and we've carried that motto all the way 'til today. Now it stands for Where the Hell is Julian Caroll? And they flew him in except two FBI Agents and a marshall (unintelligible) talkin' about, in other words, they put me back in a police car, what I want to know why and I took him around and interviewed him. Had a tape recorder runnin'. THey took pictures of us. It got clear back to Frankfort. I thought I was goin' to jail after awhile but I...I'd have went.

B: Un-hun. Was that for...what...what did they say for...for libel?

GW: Yeah. I guess that's what it amounted to, I never went any farther than that, they wanted to know why I was sayin' that. I said, why I'm saying that, (unintelligible) We're sleeping under trucks and army helicopters and everything else, you know. You ain't gonna use all this are you darling? Gettin' gooder all the time now.

B: Un-hun. What about the 1984 flood?

GW: Wasn't as severe. Uh...none of the lower lying areas like up here at the filling, the station, you know, and where Collin's Carry out, you know, then Pearley Epling, course Pearley, bless his heart, every time the water come up, he was usually somewhere between a foot and six foot in his building if nobody else got it. It wasn't so severe. It came up and went down but it was an interruption.

B: Un-hun. Okay. Since you've been here uh...thirty some years um...people have often said, I've noticed people saying that, well, they've talked about the flood wall for thirty years uh...do you think that the flood wall will make the difference that people have...have pinned their hopes on it making?

GW: That stands to reason but whether it is or not, I don't know. I do know that they've uh...there was a time, when in the Matewan area. They said, cost per ratio, a dollar for dollar, Matewan wasn't worth protecting. And that's when most of the stores were full. Now, they're not. And their protecting us. Same way with Williamson, they've tore up first Avenue. It's gone. Mostly a lot of stores no later than last week. One went out of business in Williamson. Harvits. uh...they have had all this interruption, all this multi-multi million dollars worth of business, I mean, of uh...flood wall business and seemingly, to me, all there is now there to take care of is the court house, two or three drug stores and parking meters.

B: Um-hum. Um...what do you think of this heritage tourism idea?

GW: I think it's great. I think it's needed. I think we need to work on it but I think Matewan needs to push it. Now I'm glad you're here Becky, I'm glad the Virginia Tech people are here but I don't believe the Matewan people are as sold on it as much as you are. You see, we go to Gatlinburg. You been to Gatlinburg? You go to Gatlinburg, Pidgeon Forge, Dollywood. You go to the Breaks. Anywhere you go, isn't this beautiful. You know, we got the same thing here. Well, we don't take care of it. Where are you from Becky?

B: Warrenton, Virginia.

GW: You know, you'd be surprised at the people who do not know what coal looks like. They hear about it. Had you ever seen a piece of coal before you came here?

B: Un-hun.

GW: Okay. Your...

B: My grandfather was a coal miner so.

GW: But I'm sayin', this stuff lays on the side of the road and on your porch and out in your yard and you take it for granted. Hey, there's people out in Dakotas, places, would love to have it. I heard that a guy took a bushel basket full of little pieces of coal and varnished it and shellacked it and put pins on it and made cuff links and earrings and lapel pins and made about a thousand dollars off that bushel of coal cause people didn't know what it was. See, we take this for granted, we think, why, can't have it in your hand, we've got a lot of rich heritage here. Matewan, McCoys, Hatfields. Uh...coal, mining, mine wars, union. What are we doin' with it? We're standin' around the street corner sayin' "Aw, it won't work."

B: Do you think um...I have a theory that it's because this area has been taught that it's history isn't as important and because of our national list....

GW: It's been taught by that, basically...

B: I mean we don't have a George Washington from this area, you know.

GW: Pardon me?

B: We don't have a George Washington from this area. That kind of...

GW: Oh, we do, but that's the trouble. We're talkin' about Hatfields and McCoys and there's a lot of Hatfields don't want you talkin' about Hatfields. Cause, I've been to Chamber of Commerce meetings when this was said, but yet, the same business, Hatfield McCoy play went to Beckley and they have it two or three nights a week and there's all kind of people from here go there. Why couldn't we have it here? Here's where it belongs. So I think that we have tried to put the damper on ourselves, you know, at the same time, my grandmother was a, my great grandmother was an Indian, we talk about cowboys and Indians. We watch them on TV. We don't get mad about that but we get...get aggravated because we can't talk about Hatfields and McCoys. We got mad about the Japanese thing at World War, and now we buy all their cars. You know, I was thinkin' about that the other day, people sayin' we ought to buy stuff that's union made. We ought to buy stuff from the United States at the same time, we're sellin' out the United States to Japan. They own 2/3 of everything that's here. Uh...U.S. News and World Report in Washington D.C. was bought by the Japanese people. You think about it.

B: I guess my last question uh...

GW: Have we got there?

B: I think so. Is um...it goes back to religion now.

GW: Be careful with me.

B: Okay.

GW: You've knocked me and banged me all day here. NO, I was just kidding.

B: How much cohesiveness is there in the religious community? Do any of the different ministers, say the different denominations in churches, how closely do they work together?

GW: Ninety percent of them work together, there are a few dominations who prechoose(?) not to associate with the others, which is their business but uh...basically, they have a, like our Magnolia Administerial Association, each one of them has a week of little devotionals on radio and works pretty well. There are a few that's not been there who have never been there and will never be there but uh..that's a small...that's their business. Uh...we've offered it to them. And we can't say you can and this one can't. They all can but it's pretty evident who will and who won't. After, my, at least stance of thirty years.

B: Have you ever been to a snake handling center?

GW: No. But I'd love to go and watch by the back door. I have watched boys handle them but uh..handle them, I have a friend who handles snakes. He's not doing it for the purpose of uh...religion, he's doing it for the purpose of, he likes snakes. I think he's goofy myself, I mean, anybody that likes snakes is something wrong with him.

B: Well, I actually...

GW: Have you?

B: I actually have one more question.

GW: Okay, darling.

B: What would you like to see happen to and for Matewan say, in the next twenty-five years?

GW: I would like to se the museum come into effect. I would like to see um...the more uh...sign so to speak, like the trail of uh...Devil Anse used to use or Randall McCoy, I would like to see more, as you said, cohesiveness of Matewan and the people here. Don't fight it. We've got some people in the Matewan area that's not for anything. And if they were for it and thought you were, they'd be against it. Uh...I refuse to use names on that but anybody that's been here far know who I'm talkin' about. And I think, you know, we've got to work together uh...I wonder if everybody in St. Louis was against the arch. Know what I mean. Why, that old thing standin' up there in the river bank. I want you to, know what I mean. Oh, everybody was against the New York Empire State Building.

B: It was considered very ugly when it was built. They didn't like it...and so was the Eiffel tower in Paris.

GW: Well, it's not really an attractive town but, yeah, what about the Sears Tower, you know. but uh...what are you gonna do? Tear them down. I do think we don't have any respect for ourselves around here.

B: What do you think is the source of that?

GW: Ignorance. Uh...graffiti is what I'm talkin'. We'd write on anything. Some of us could. Some of us just our name. uh...were....what is it where is it where the presidents pictures are on...You know what I'm talkin about?

B: Mount Rushmore.

GW: Mount Rushmore. If Mount Rushmore was here. We'd have on George Washington's forehead. Vote for Joe Blow. (laughing) That's just...just natural. We would. Somebody would climb up there and paint it. And then we'd probably hang a bag of trash down off of it or something, I mean, that's just our trademark. I will say, basically, not for everybody, but there are a lot of our intelligence laying on the side of the road.

B: Okay. Well, thank you for talking with me today and that's the end of the interview.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection