If every community had an Appalshop, we would all be much better at exchanging handshakes and recipes. They are a beacon of decency and forward-thinking in our country’s continued quest for equal human rights. Nick Offerman
Katie Myers
WMMT
Hannah Adams
Appalachian Media Institute
Marley Green
Appalshop
Benny Becker
WMMT
Caroline Rubens
Appalshop Archive
Daryl Royse
Appalshop
Willa Johnson
Appalachian Media Institute
Eric VanHoose
Appalshop
Becca Finney
Roadside Theater
Leo Shannon
Appalshop Archive
Roger May
Appalshop
Alexander Gibson
Appalshop
Kathleen Byrne
Appalshop
Elizabeth Barret
Appalshop Archive
Jessica Shelton
Appalshop
Téa Wimer
WMMT
Annie Jane Cotten
Letcher County Culture Hub
Herb E. Smith
Appalshop
Mimi Pickering
Community Media Initiative and All Access EKY
WMMT
Katie Myers joined WMMT in 2021 as our WMMT/Ohio Valley Resource Reporter, covering the economic transition beat. In the past, she worked directly with communities in Kentucky and Tennessee on environmental issues, energy democracy, and the digital divide, and is a founding member of the Southern Connected Communities project, a community-owned rural ISP. She has published audio and written work with Inside Appalachia, Scalawag, Daily Yonder, and Belt Magazine, among others, and received a Kristi Havens Memorial Fellowship from the Sundress Academy of the Arts. She has also worked as a production assistant with Black in Appalachia, a project of East Tennessee PBS. Katie believes in storytelling that punches up. In her spare time, Katie likes to write stage plays, porch sit with friends, and get lost on the backroads.
Appalachian Media Institute
Hannah Adams joined Appalshop in 2021 as the Lead Educator of Appalshop’s Appalachian Media Institute (AMI). Hannah first began working with AMI in 2017 as a youth media intern and has been an active participant ever since. Her work with AMI inspired her to seek higher education at Morehead State University, where she received a Bachelor’s of Arts in Convergent Media. Hannah's work has been published by NPR, YR Media, and 100 Days in Appalachia, among others. A Letcher County native, Hannah is grateful to continue her work with AMI helping Appalachian youth find a passion for media production.
Appalshop
WMMT
Benny Becker first joined Appalshop in 2016, and has been in the role of Story Trainer & Co-Producer for WMMT since 2021. Benny started at Appalshop as WMMT's reporter/producer for the launch of the Ohio Valley ReSource regional journalism collaborative. His reporting on water issues and black lung disease in collaboration with NPR won multiple national and regional awards. After an intermission as an Abrams Nieman Fellow for Local Investigative Journalism at Harvard University, Benny came back to Appalshop in 2020 as a Guest Educator for the Appalachian Media Institute, then Interim General Manager for WMMT. Benny lives in Beckley, West Virginia, and is originally from Morgantown. He likes to hug trees, play in creeks, and dance like a fool.
Appalshop Archive
Appalshop
Appalachian Media Institute
Appalshop
Roadside Theater
Appalshop Archive
Leo Shannon joined Appalshop in 2021 as our Archive Assistant. Leo is a fiddler and visual artist from Seattle, Washington who learned to play as a boy from older musicians around him and from friends his own age, particularly those who shared his interest in American traditional music. Since age 7, Leo has played as part of a group of friends called The Onlies, who continue to travel the country performing old time music. Before moving to Whitesburg, Kentucky, he spent four years in Swannanoa, North Carolina, studying regional history and sound technologies, and exploring the deep world of archives.
Appalshop
Roger May joined Appalshop in 2021 as our Operations Director. Based in Alum Creek, West Virginia, Roger was born in the Tug River Valley on the West Virginia and Kentucky border. His photographs explore the complicated history of place, faith and identity in the coalfields, and have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, and Oxford American, among others. Roger has taught at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and Hindman Settlement School, lecturing throughout the region, and the photography project that he founded called Looking at Appalachia continues to present a crowdsourced visual representation of the 13 Appalachian states. When he's not making photographs, you can find Roger running loops around Alum Creek.
Appalshop
Appalshop
Kathleen Byrne joined Appalshop in 2020 as our Institutional Development Director. She graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a B.F.A in Filmmaking with a concentration in film producing. She later earned her M.A. in Arts Administration from the University of Kentucky. Before joining Appalshop, she spent time working for the Charlotte Regional Film Commission in Charlotte, N.C. There she helped recruit such films and television shows such as Leatherheads, The Hunger Games, Homeland and Banshee. She also worked in economic development as a director at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance. It was through this work that she came to realize the important cross section of arts and economic development. Married to a Letcher County native since 1998, she was happy to have this opportunity to move her family home. She and her husband, Brian Warf, have two sons.
Appalshop Archive
Appalshop
WMMT
Téa Wimer joined Appalshop in 2021 as our WMMT Development Coordinator. Téa has a deep love and appreciation for community radio and its transformative and comforting powers. A paid summer gig at WPRB in Princeton, New Jersey led to a weekly show as DJ Dewey and Peppermint Pig, and they spent more than two years at the station as Development & Business Director in an opportunity to truly be in the guts of community/college radio. Téa graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in Religious Studies from Princeton University, with special interests in gender/sexuality studies and ethnography. Their hobbies include graphic design, animation and indie comics, food everything, and being a good old school pen pal.
Letcher County Culture Hub
Appalshop
Community Media Initiative and All Access EKY