On this West Virginia Morning, an experimental apple orchard in the state is helping to fight pollution, improve food scarcity and some hope even heal veterans. Briana Heaney has the story.
Long before Doug Williams and those who followed blazed their paths as black quarterbacks in the National Football League, another African America play-caller graced Lailey Field in Charleston, West Virginia.
Ron Pennington played for the Charleston Rockets during the 1960s. He spoke with Us & Them podcast producer Trey Kay about his time in the Mountain State.
At 5-foot-nine and 155 lbs, Pennington used his strong arm and scrambling ability to carve out success on the field.
Pennington says he enjoyed his time with the Rockets very much, staying on in Charleston for 15 years after an injury cut his pro football career short.
He eventually moved to Oklahoma and then to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he lives now.
Us & Them has a new podcast available about James “Shack” Harris, who was the first African American quarterback to break the color barrier in the NFL. You can listen to the episode by clicking on this link.
On this West Virginia Morning, an experimental apple orchard in the state is helping to fight pollution, improve food scarcity and some hope even heal veterans. Briana Heaney has the story.
This week's broadcast of Mountain Stage is a special episode featuring songs that represent the four seasons of the year. You'll hear live performances by Doc Watson, Bruce Hornsby, Susan Werner, Molly Tuttle, Taj Mahal, Norah Jones and many more.
Across the nation, more than 390,000 children rely on foster care. However, a shortage of licensed foster homes is creating a national crisis. While official foster care cases are carefully tracked, many informal examples of kinship care aren’t part of the data. For this Us & Them episode, we hear the experiences of those who’ve been part of the foster care system.
Stock car racing’s roots run deep in Appalachia. Our twisty roads and dark hollers were home to moonshiners — and moonshine runners, who became known for their driving skills. And they became some of NASCAR’s first stars when it formed in 1948. But NASCAR’s oldest continuous racing team had nothing to do with moonshine.