Above: Raccoon Creek
I had the chance to meet with Phil Hutchinson over a Teams call and talk about rural Ohio and the Appalahia identity. Growing up in Southeastern Ohio, Phil has formed a connection to Appalachian identity and heritage, and continues to live in Southeastern Ohio with his family today. The following is a paraphrased summary of the interview:
What does Phil do for ODNR?
Phil’s started working for ODNR a little over 2 years ago, and his job encompasses a lot of things. At the moment a lot of his work is writing content for interpretive park signage, recent works being content for the new Great Council State Park, and an underground railroad project.
“Research says people won’t read much beyond 250-300 words.”
In short, the process involves starting big and working down.
Phil starts by compiling research into a big Word document. Then there’s a lot of back and forth with AI wuch as ChatGPT. Phil will feed maybe 5000 words to the AI, ask it to condense the writing to 500 words while still hitting a few key points. The summary is fact checked, and then fed through AI again, this time the target demographic will be identified as to inform the tone of voice (ex. third grade reading level). The content is then shared with other people in the communications team, and/or external reviewers.
“I’m a middle-aged white guy, it’s not always my story to tell.”
With general park and natural history, Phil is more comfortable with his knowledge on the content. When the content is relflection of other communities and cultures, he will reach out to people from those communities to make sure the subject matter is treated in a way that honors that community. With more sensitive subjects or stories, it’s important to involve other.
Next step is to work with the design team to properly visualize and format the signage. For the making of the actual physical sign, ODNR has an internal sign shop, or they also work with Pannier Graphics.
Growing Up in Southeastern Ohio
Phil grew up in a middle class family a little outside of Albany on a piece of property that has been passed down through several geenrations, in a house that has also been rebuilt several times since the 1800s. Generationally his family was mostly farmers. His grandparents had a working dairy farm with about 20 cows. He grew up in the woods: spent a lot of time outside, lots of hunting, lots of fishing, hunting for morel mushrooms, etc. His dad was a high school teach, his mom was a bank teller, two parents with income. For the area, their household had a decent income.
“A lot of my peer group was more financially challenged. People would grow up in trailers, work transient jobs, there were single parent families. I grew up middle-class, but I was still exposed to a lot of poverty.”
There were also backyard bands playing on banjos and guitars. Phil remembers trying homemade moonshine for the first time at 14 years old. There was lots of homemade wine, and marijuana growing. All of which speaks to ‘Appalachian Deviancy’. A culture that doesn’t have a lot of respect for people from the outside making rules.
A lot of people are only one generation removed from the coal mines. Phil had a friend whose dad worked his whole life in the coal mines. The friend never worked directly in the coal mines, but he would do some around the coal mines, such as bringing down lunches to his dad.
Appalachian History
Culturally, Ohio’s Appalachian region is fairly watered down because it’s on the hinterlands. Go further into the Virginia corridor and you get more into ‘pure’ Appalachian culture. The creation of the Appalachian region is not nearly as homogenous as we think. There’s lots of myth built up around cartoonish caricature of the Appalachian hillbilly.
Appalachia is a distinct geographical region, marked off mostly by mountains. Interactions between Native Americans and White Europeans make up the core of early social exchange. Coastal settlers always felt the mountains were foreboding and dangerous to cross. The people who lived in Appalachia lived more like Native Americans than Europeans [resulting in a distinct identity early in American history].
There’s also a history of exploitative industries in Appalachia. Companies from the east coast trying to make money, but no providing long-term sustainable work. Companies make money, pull out, boomtowns die, and people are left in poverty. Well to-do boomtowns used to have theatres with copper ceiling and train station. Now they have some of the poorest school districts in Ohio. These are the marks of the coal and clay industries.
Present Day Appalachia
Southeastern Ohio was hit hard by the Opioid epidemic. Phil’s graduating class was small, around 100 students. Around 10% of his graduating class has passed from opioid overdose. A lot was lost during the epidemic, it was a dark time for the area.
However, there’s promising trends. Lots of community groups are working to revitalize the area through strategies that are true to the people of the area.
Rural Action’s mission statement:
“Nestled in the foothills of Appalachian Ohio, Rural Action was founded in 1991 on the principle that locally-based, sustainable, and inclusive development is the main strategy for building resilient rural Appalachian communities. Rural Action’s mission is to build a more just economy by developing the region’s assets in environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways. We do this work by focusing on sectors identified as important by our members: food and agriculture, forestry, zero waste and recycling, environmental education, watershed restoration, and energy. Emerging work in social enterprise development and local tourism are more recent parts of our portfolio.”
These strategies are strength-based. They’re not about brining things in from the outside, they’re about strengthening what’s already there.
There’s also positive movement on the environmental front. Phil remembers Raccoon Creek as a kid was very heavily impacted by acid mine drainage. The pH was extremely low, the water rust colored, and animals couldn’t thrive. Over the past 20 years it’s improved so much that almost the enitre length meets minimum EPA standards. Fish and salamanders are back. It’s even anticipated to be next on the Ohio Scenic River list.
There’s reclamation of abandoned mine areas. The sites are cleaned up, leaking mines closed, sink holes filled, and native foliage replanted to create thriving ecosystems.
There’s still a lot of poverty. The way schools are funded in Ohio doesn’t support Appalachian schools. It’s one of the big problems that needs to be addressed. It’s also hard to find a good job. To find good paying jobs, you have to look outside Athens county. Appalachia needs better schools and better jobs.
Overall, communities are stronger and more united than they were in the past, which makes Phil feel optimistic about the future.
Addressing Stereotypes
[I brought up the generalization that Appalchians/rural Ohioans are very conservative, and asked Phil whether that was accurate or inaccurate.]
It’s accurate to an extent, Phil says. Southeastern Ohio is part of the Bible Belt. Older churches are struggling with membership at the moment. Newer churches are a little less conservative. The area is pretty conservative but there are also strong libertarian values. People want to be left alone.
“You have your Evangelical Christian blocks. There’s also a lot of people, when you get to talking with them, they aren’t big supporters of big government programs. People prefer local control.”
There were a lot of Democrats in Southeastern Ohio when there were more southern Democrats in congress who were more socially conservative.
The stereotypical old-fashioned Hillbilly isn’t highly engaged in politics. They are much more about local community, their own family. For lack of a better term, they’re clannish.
Creating Change
[Because there is a culture of resistance, I asked Phil how one would go about creating change in these communities.]
“People want to see their communities thrive.”
It’s the way you go about it. If you come into a community from the outside without any credibility, it kinda gets brushed off as ‘Another outsider coming in who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Some way or another they’re going to exploit us’. In the past 150 years, when people did that, came and made promises about prosperity, they took your coal and leave you with nothing.
Trust is built when people establish themselves with the community, and also work with the community. A lot of people arent the most educated, but they’re not stupid. There’s a lot of intelligence that is already here. A lot can get done.
Appalachians and the Environment
[I asked Phil to tell me about the relationship Appalachians have with their environment.]
There is a deep relationship with nature. A complex relationship.
A lot of people grew up hunting and fishing, foraging for ginseng, ramps, morels. People see nature as something that can provide for you.
Not a lot of people have a scieneticifc approach. They don’t connect with ‘sustainability’ much.
Instead, there is a generational understanding of the land. They know how the animals move, they recognize the migration patterns of birds and butterflies. They know when the deer population is strong, the best fishing hole, the best spot for catfish. There’s lots of connection to land and water. Not a lot of people buy into the sustainability approach. If more of the younger generation stays, especially those getting educations, you’ll start to see change in perceptions.
People have a very organic relationship with nature. People want to see a strong environment. They also want strong industry and strong jobs.
People look at EPA and say, ‘For 100 years, people came in from the city and took money out of the land. And now because that has caused environmental impacts, now you’re telling me I can’t lease land for oil and gas drilling’. There’s hostility towards people who left the mess. Hostility because other people made money off of [the mess], but people living there can’t.
The area is pretty heavily in support of fracking and gas despite the scientific community saying it’s not the best for the environment. People think they should be able money off of their land.
In Conclusion
“The Appalachian identity is a manufactured identity, but it’s still an identity.”
Phil actually moved to Seattle for about 5 years, and then ended up moving back to Southeastern Ohio.
“I identify with the region. It’s good for me to live here. There is a strongly authentic connection to the land here. We may not have environmentalists, but there is an authentic and generational connection to our land. It’s cathartic.”
“Sometimes you leave home. There’s something special about growing up in one place. It’s important to find that connection, even if you don’t go back there physically.”
Phil’s explanation as to why people of the Appalachian region are in favor of oil and fracking industries is a perspective I’ve never seen discussed before. It completes and complicates the larger picture. It’s a perspective that affords people of Appalachia a lot more sympathy, which is important when it’s an issue that is so politically charged.
Phil’s last words at the end of the interview struck me as a beautifully worded piece of advice. Appalachian’s have deep roots in their land. Outsider environmentalists want a future that continues to support connection to the environment. Both sides of the climate crisis don’t take home for granted. The framing of climate crisis as a ‘sustainability’ issue doesn’t work for everyone. It’s an approach that is future centered when many present day environmental issues are the results of the past. At the center of the conflict is this idea of home. Whether through a scientific approach or a generational approach, everyone’s goal is to protect their home.
About Us. (n.d.). Rural Action. Retrieved September 21, 2024, from https://ruralaction.org/get-to-know-us/about-us/
