Staff Bios

Patsy Adams (top)

Adams, who was born and raised in Letcher County, KY, joined Appalshop’s Marketing and Sales division in the late 1980s. She later served as Receptionist for Appalshop and was in charge of scheduling building events, conducting tours and a variety of other activities. She became Bookkeeper for the organization in 2004. Her previous experience includes helping to operate a day care center and bookkeeping for a coal trucking firm.

Elizabeth Barret (top)

A native Kentuckian, Elizabeth Barret is a veteran documentary filmmaker, whose work pursues an abiding interest in the history, culture and people of Appalachia. She is the producer and director of STRANGER WITH A CAMERA and works as a community-based artist. In her documentaries QUILTING WOMEN (1976), HAND-CARVED (1980), COALMINING WOMEN (1982), and LONG JOURNEY HOME (1987), Appalachians tell their own stories. These films have screened at film festivals and venues worldwide. Barret is a recipient of a Kentucky Arts Council Fellowship in Media Arts, NEA Southeast Media Fellowship and Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship. She is involved in outreach using her documentary STRANGER WITH A CAMERA, which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on the PBS series P.O.V.

Beth Bingman (top)

Beth Bingman, who completed her Ph.D. in 1995 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a dissertation on women’s learning in Appalachian community organizations, comes to Appalshop after serving as Associate Director at the Center for Literacy Studies at UTK. Her work there included research, evaluation, curriculum development, and design of professional development. Beth continues to be associated with the Center as a Senior Research Associate. Her involvement in community and regional activism includes service on the boards of the Dungannon (VA) Development Commission, the Appalachian Peace Education Center, the Appalachian Community Fund, Literacy South, and the Highlander Research and Education Center.

Dudley Cocke (top)

Dudley Cocke, director of Roadside Theater, is a stage director, teacher, writer, and media producer. He recently co-directed Betsy, a theater collaboration with Pregones Theater, Bronx, NY, which premiered in New York City in 2008. International work includes directing the company’s performances in the Czech Republic, directing Junebug/Jack for England’s Festival of the American South at London’s South Bank Centre, and conducting dance/story workshops for the Baltic Dance Festival in Poland. He has taught theater at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Cornell University, and the College of William and Mary, and often speaks and writes as an advocate for democratic cultural values. His policy remarks and essays have been published by the Urban Institute, Yale University, American Theatre magazine, Americans for the Arts, Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, the Community Arts Network/Art in the Public Interest, The Arts Politic, among others. He co-edited, From the Ground Up, Grassroots Theater in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Cornell University, 1993), Journeys Home: Revealing a Zuni—Appalachia Collaboration (A:shiwi Press, 2002), and several of his speeches are collected in Voices From the Battlefront: Achieving Cultural Equity (Africa World Press, 1993). Red Fox /Second Hangin’, which he co-authored, is one of seven plays in Alternate Roots: New Plays from the Southern Theatre (Heinemann, 1994). Cocke is a board member of the Bush Foundation, St. Paul, MN; Imagining America, Syracuse University; RUPRI, Washington, D.C., and Appalshop. He is a founding member of Alternate ROOTS and the Global Network for Cultural Rights, and is the recipient of the 2002 Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities.

Evelyn Cosgriff (top)

A native of Letcher County, KY, Cosgriff brought a wealth of experience with her when she returned to the mountains in 2004. She has lived in central Kentucky and in Biloxi, MS, and has worked as a real estate paralegal and as a restaurant manager, as well as for WKYT-TV in Lexington. She joined the Appalshop staff in 2005.

Mia Frederick (top)

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Mia Frederick has been producing community based media and art in Whitesburg Kentucky since 2004. Frederick directs the Community Correspondents Corps (CCC) a citizens media initiative of WMMT, Appalshop's community radio station. Frederick founded the CCC in 2006 with Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer, spurred by an idea at the heart of Appalshop’s work - the principle that people have the right to control the development of their own communities through active participation in public dialog. Since 2006, the CCC has trained over 50 volunteer correspondents that have produced radio reports and stories on issues ranging from water quality to prison reform. In January of 2009 Frederick traveled to Zambia, where she worked with colleagues from the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Zambian media producers to develop an HIV/Aids focused Community Correspondents Corps model to be implemented at community radio stations in Zambia’s Eastern Province. Frederick's radio work has been heard on WV Public Radio, KY Public Radio, and This American Life.

Tom Hansell (top)

Hansell has worked at Appalshop since 1990, producing documentary radio and television programming. His current project is production of a documentary examining the impact of national energy policy on Appalachian coalfield communities. Hansell’s 2002 documentary COAL BUCKET OUTLAW screened on public television in 30 states and was part of the Museum of Modern Art’s documentary fortnight program that year. He received a Golden Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for his radio documentary, based on the film. He was awarded a Bridge Residency for community-based artists from the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA, in 2005. He is a graduate of the Ohio University School of Telecommunications in Athens.

Mark Kidd (top)

Mark Kidd is Communications Director of Appalshop, planning and coordinating print, radio, and web outreach for Appalshop and its programmatic partners as well as serving as a point of contact for local, state, and federal agencies. He also administrates the Seedtime on the Cumberland festival in Whitesburg, Kentucky. In 2006 and 2007 Mark served on advisory panels for the Southwest Virginia Coal Heritage Trail and the Virginia Spearhead Trail initiatives, regional efforts to develop new economic opportunities in Virginia coalfields communities by engaging with non-profit organizations, businesses and local governments in Southwest Virginia to foster heritage and adventure tourism. Mark holds a B.A. in Writing from the University of Kentucky where he graduated cum laude and was awarded a two-year Gaines Fellowship in the Humanities. His fellowship research focused on regional tourism development in Kentucky, connections between the rapid industrialization of postwar Japan and the industrialization of Central Appalachia, and musical traditions of Central and Southern Appalachia.

Rich Kirby (top)

Kirby had performed traditional Appalachian music and stories for 20 years before coming to WMMT in 1990. He was involved in extensive documentation and recording of older musicians and did considerable work with traditional music in schools, both in Appalachia and in other parts of the country. In addition to his radio duties, he was music director of Appalshop’s Seedtime on the Cumberland Festival for three years. In 1989, he produced LAKUTSHON’ ILANGA: MUSIC IS A HEALER, a 13-hour radio series on music in South Africa, distributed nationally, and in 1997, he produced SEEDTIME ON THE CUMBERLAND, a 13-part series of music from the festival, redistributed nationally in 2001. He has produced recordings for Appalshop’s June Appal record label, including recordings of National Heritage Award winners Lily May Ledford and Wade Mainer. For 10 years, he served as station manager for WMMT. His latest production work is A FIDDLE RUNS THROUGH IT, a radio series profiling the young musicians carrying on Appalachia’s music traditions and the older musicians they learned from. The series aired on more than 130 public radio stations in 2003. He has also produced LIVE AT APPALSHOP, featuring music and short profiles of artists who have appeared live on the Appalshop Theater stage. GOING AROUND THIS WORLD, a one-hour radio special on the life of Lily May Ledford, is in production.

Anne Lewis (top)

Lewis's work reveals working class people fighting for social change. She was associate director/assistant camera for HARLAN COUNTY, USA, the Academy Award-winning documentary, which focused on the Brookside strike of 1975. After the strike, Lewis moved to the coalfields where she lived for 25 years. Among documentaries she has produced, directed and edited are TO SAVE THE LAND AND PEOPLE (SXSW, Texas Documentary Tour), a history of a militant grassroots environmental movement; JUSTICE IN THE COALFIELDS (INTERCOM gold plaque) about the community impact of the Pittston strike in southwest Virginia; ON OUR OWN LAND (duPont-Columbia award for independent broadcast journalism) about the citizens’ movement to stop broad form deed strip-mining; and CHEMICAL VALLEY, co-directed with Mimi Pickering, (P.O.V., American Film and Video Blue Ribbon) about environmental racism. Her documentary FAST FOOD WOMEN, about women struggling to raise families in minimum wage jobs with no benefits, received national airing on P.O.V. and was part of a Learning Channel series of films about women by women. Other recognized work includes EVELYN WILLIAMS, about an African-American activist, coal miner’s wife and mother of nine (Juror’s Choice, Black Maria Film Festival, Margaret Meade Festival); BELINDA, about AIDS-activist Belinda Mason who spoke of the need for a collective response not crippled by homophobia, racism, fear or ignorance (CINE Golden Eagle); MINNIE BLACK’S GOURD BAND (Retirement Research Foundation Silver Owl Award, Museum of Modern Art screening); and MABEL PARKER HARDISON SMITH, about an African-American teacher and gospel musician (Atlanta Film and Video Festival, Antros ‘87/Barbara Myerhoff Film Festival, Women in the Director’s Chair). Lewis lives in Austin, TX, and teacher non-linear editing at the University of Texas. She has two Appalshop projects in production: MORRISTOWN, a working class look at globalization from both sides of the US-Mexico border, and ANNE BRADEN, with Mimi Pickering.

Cheryl Marshall (top)

Marshall's affiliation with WMMT began in 1994, when she became a volunteer programmer with a weekly music show. She also volunteered in a number of other capacities. In 1999, she joined Appalshop as a full-time radio staff member, and in 2002, she was chosen station manager by the other members of the staff. She has a business background, having owned and managed a business in Wise, VA, for more than 20 years. She supervises a paid staff of four and more than 60 volunteers.

Derek Mullins (top)

A native of Perry County, Derek was first introduced to Appalshop as an AMI intern in 1996. Before joining Marketing & Sales in late 2004 he had been touring the country in various bands playing everything from metal to folk music.

Rebecca O'Doherty (top)

Rebecca has taught digital storytelling workshops in Langa Township, South Africa and developed youth programming in Oaxaca, Mexico. In her role as AMI Director Rebecca is responsible for program development and youth media instruction. Rebecca¹s work with AMI has focused on helping young people amplify their voices and engage youth and their communities in dialogue and action around vital Appalachian issues. Rebecca has worked as an artist with The Harlan County Project, an initiative of Harlan, KY residents to use the tools and processes of art to address declining social, economic, and environmental conditions. At Duke University¹s Center for Documentary Studies Rebecca worked as a video trainer with the Latina Video Group in Durham, NC and as the photography teacher for the Youth Document Durham Program. Rebecca is an alumni of Duke University¹s and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill¹s Robertson Scholars Program. She has a Bachelor¹s of Arts in International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Mimi Pickering (top)

Mimi has also been producing films and videotapes at Appalshop since 1971. Her documentaries often feature women as principle storytellers, focus on injustice and inequity, and explore the efforts of grassroots people to deal with community problems and work for change. Mimi is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Kentucky Arts Council Fellowships, as well as media production grants from the American Film Institute and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. She has directed numerous award-winning documentaries, including: The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man, described by Newsweek as “a powerful piece of muckraking on film”; Chemical Valley, which was broadcast on the PBS series POV; Dreadful Memories, about the life and times of traditional singer and radical songwriter Sarah Ogan Gunning; and Hazel Dickens: It's Hard to Tell the Singer From the Song, a portrait of this National Heritage Award winner described by the Washington Post as "a living legend of American music, a national treasure." Mimi also directs Appalshop’s Community Media Initiative, which works with grassroots groups and public interest organizations to develop and implement communication strategies in support of social and economic justice organizing and policy change.

Donna Porterfield (top)

Since 1978, Porterfield has been one-third of the core leadership of the Roadside Theater ensemble and has been instrumental in the creation and documentation of Roadside’s community cultural development model and the model’s methodologies. In 1998-2000, she led a residency with a women’s shelter in central Appalachia, working with staff and survivors of domestic violence to write and direct a play, VOICES FROM THE BATTLEFRONT. In 2006, Porterfield collaborated with Appalshop’s Thousand Kites to write and produce a play addressing the burgeoning rural prison industry through the stories of prisoners, guards, and their respective families and communities. Porterfield is producer of Roadside’s ongoing, 26-year collaboration with traditional Native American artists in the Pueblo of Zuni, New Mexico; she co-authored the Roadside/Idiwanan An Chawe play, CORN MOUNTAIN/PINE MOUNTAIN: FOLLOWING THE SEASONS, which toured nationally. She co-edited JOURNEYS HOME: REVEALING A ZUNI-APPALACHIAN COLLABORATION, a 112-page bilingual book with accompanying compact disc that probes and documents the collaboration. Her articles have been published in High Performance magazine, on the National Endowment for the Arts’ website, and in the book, The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena. She has served as consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, Kentucky Arts Council, Arkansas Arts Commission, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Urban Bushwomen, Alternate ROOTS, Southern Arts Federation, and Mid-Atlantic Arts Consortium, among others.

Caroline Rubens (top)

Caroline is a graduate of NYU's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) program. Before becoming an archivist she worked in documentary film and tv production, and as a computer lab technician. Since graduation from the MIAP program she has worked on educational development for the moving image archiving field, and on a Library of Congress study to preserve born-digital public television. Her work also includes archival newsfilm projects at the Rhode Island Historical Society and in Buffalo, NY, and she served as the preservation coordinator at a video restoration facility in NYC. Special interests include preservation of obsolete video formats, local television, and community media.

Robert Salyer (top)

Born and raised in the coalfields of southwest Virginia, Salyer was trained as a filmmaker at the Appalshop and joined the staff in 1998. He is producer, director and editor of SLUDGE, a documentary that examines a major Kentucky coal waste spill and its effects on the environment and community. He is currently producing BAD OLD DAYS, a documentary about Kentucky county politics.

Matt Salter (top)

Matt Salter is an Administrative and Artistic Associate with Roadside Theater. He is a 2009 graduate of Miami University, specializing in interdisciplinary performance and direction. He has been blessed with a varied career, from directing a modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to doing the MC Hammer dance in Lysistrata for a bemused Athenian audience. He’s also a working writer, currently in the midst of a series of novels and a multimedia performance piece on the life and art of Michelangelo.

Ron Short (top)

Ron Short, since 1978 one third of the core leadership of the Roadside Theater ensemble, is a playwright, composer, performer, and director. Short grew up in central Appalachia steeped in the traditional Appalachian music tradition perpetuated for 200 years by his family. After military service in Viet Nam as a medic, he worked at Highlander Center in New Market, TN from 1974-1977, where he was influenced by the political activism of the Civil Rights Movement and labor organizing. Since coming to work at Roadside, he scripted and wrote music for 15 musical plays which are currently in Roadside's touring repertoire, and performs in 12 touring productions. Mr. Short produced Roadside's three year project in collaboration with Cornell University which included developing and teaching a course, "Issues in Community Based Art" and convening a national theater symposium, "From the Ground Up: Grassroots Theater in Historical And Contemporary Perspective." He produced a four-year project with Lewiston-Auburn Arts in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine that included playwriting and storytelling projects with factory workers, ethnic social clubs, an elementary school, and the police department. He has contributed articles to several publications; an excerpt from his musical play, South of the Mountain, appears in the publication, A Southern Appalachian Reader (Appalachian Consortium Press); and the Promise of a Love Song script, which he co-wrote with Pregones Theater and Junebug Productions, appears in Ensemble Theater: An Anthology (Theatre Communications Group, 2005). His music recordings include "Cities of Gold", on the June Appal label; Roadside Theater's "Singing"; and "Wings to Fly" on the Copper Creek label.

Anthony Slone (top)

Born and raised in Hollybush in Knott County, KY, Slone joined Appalshop as a film student in 1973. He makes his home in southwestern Virginia, where he filmed APPLEWISE (1997), as well as the Headwaters 100 episode on the legendary Carter Family, SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE. HOMEMADE TALES, a portrait of Slone’s mother, was also featured in the first Headwaters series. He has filmed, edited and produced numerous Appalshop films. His latest is a profile of a former moonshiner in southwest Virginia, WHIPPIN’ THE DEVIL.

Herb E. Smith (top)

Smith continues to make films in the area where he was raised. Since 1969 when he was a high school student, he has played an active role in Appalshop’s governance. His films explore cultural, social and economic issues of the Appalachian region. His latest film, THE RALPH STANLEY STORY, is a portrait of the mountain musician who had been performing for more than 55 years. Smith is making a film based on an essay by Kentucky writer Wendell Berry, THOUGHTS IN THE PRESENCE OF FEAR. His films and videotapes have been shown throughout the country in venues from community centers and union halls to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. International screenings of his work include Paris, Berlin, Rome, Calcutta, Bombay and Chengdu.

Nick Szuberla (top)

Nick Szuberla is an artist at Appalshop, an Appalachian-based arts organization. In 1998, Nick founded the media arts project "Holler to the Hood" to explore the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner city minority offenders to distant rural prisons. With a variety of media (live performance, radio, video and digital) and form (including a multimedia installation and database-driven web site), his projects focus on creating public space where people can tell their story in their own voice. He has worked extensively in the youth media movement throughout rural America; including in Appalachia, Mississippi Delta, and south Texas. Training more than 500 youth and adults in the use of media arts as a community development tool. Working with young people in central Appalachian, Szuberla has also produced workshops that explore "hill-hop," a rural hip-hop genre. He was the producer of the award winning documentary films "Up the Ridge", "The Global Economy in Our Backyard", and "Sambusa." His work has been featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Definitely Not the Opera, BBC, Bob Edwards Show, and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. He is the current director and co-founder of “Thousand Kites” a national dialogue and organizing project addressing the U.S. criminal justice system and human rights. A "Creative Capital" fellowship grantee, Szuberla was recently awarded a "New Generations" fellowship from the Theater Communications Group.

Jim Webb (top)

A native of Letcher County, Webb holds a Bachelor of Arts from Berea College and an MA from Eastern Kentucky University. He is a widely published poet and playwright whose work experiences include hospital purchasing, teaching, printing and publishing, managing a canoe livery, and operating a primitive resort. He is a founding member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Co-Op and the Tug Valley Recovery Center. He is involved with the Letcher County Chamber of Commerce, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Letcher County Tourism Commission. His affiliation with WMMT goes back to December 1985, a month after the station went on the air. He joined the staff in June 1986.