ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: MCCOY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS
"Life in a Coal Mining Community" will be the theme of the third annual Coal Miners Day celebration.
The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the McCoy Community Park, located on McCoy Road behind the Longshop-McCoy Fire Department.
It will feature a variety of activities including mountain music, crafts, living history demonstrations, refreshments and a ceremony to honor all ex-miners and their families.
Exhibits of a demonstration coal mine and a typical miner's cottage will be displayed. Several area churches will also conduct old-time "brush arbor" services on site.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, will be the keynote speaker for the memorial ceremony at 1 p.m.
Radford University anthropology students, who have conducted a two-semester oral history project with local miners and their families, also will be part of the program. Their interviews are scheduled to become part of a book titled "Memories of Our Coal Mining Heritage" to be published later this year.
The Coal Mining Heritage Association of Montgomery County has staged an annual Coal Miners Day since 1994, when the county Board of Supervisors declared each anniversary of the Great Valley mine explosion on April 18, 1946, as Coal Miners Memorial Day.
No admission is charged to attend the event. If it rains, the celebration will move ahead a week to April 27 - same time, same place.
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB