Speaker Biographies

Wess Harris

Wess Harriss is an educator and farmer currently living in Roane County. His company, Appalachian Community Services, Inc., published When Miners March, which has been featured on the History Channel and selected as a text at several regional colleges and universities. Harris, who edited the book, was selected as the 2009 West Virginia History Hero and regularly takes his traveling museum to events throughout the region. In the past five years, students from more than 30 states have traveled to his Flatridge Farm to study Appalachian history and culture. Harris holds an M.A. from Ohio University and is paper trained as a sociologist. He also has a black hat - the diploma awarded to those who become underground coal miners.

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