“Refuge,” and “Encyclopedia of Appalachia” winners of 2006 W. D. Weatherford Awards honoring books on the Appalachian South at 2007 Appalachian Studies Conference

Presented jointly by the Appalachian Studies Association and the Berea College Appalachian Center, the awards honor selected published works that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.”  The conferring of this annual $500 award has come to be recognized as a major Appalachian event.
Established and supported for 19 years by the late Alfred Perrin, retired publications director of Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, the award commemorates the life and achievements of W.D. Weatherford, Sr., a pioneer and leading figure for many years in Appalachian development, youth work and race relations, and of his son, Willis D. Weatherford, Jr., late Berea College President.  (For more, visit www.berea.edu/appalachiancenter

Also at the conference, Berea seniors Esther White, a business administration major from Berea and Mzwandile Ginindza, an economics major from Swaziland, were named winners of the Carl Ross Student Paper Competition for their analytical study “Shifting Paradigms: The Future of Economic Development in Appalachia.”

“Refuge,” the story about a woman who escapes her husband and returns to her family’s abandoned homestead in the Blue Ridge Mountains, won for best work of fiction.  Published by Novello Festival Press, the novel is the first book-length work of fiction for Jackson, an award-winning journalist and envirionmental activist   Now in her seventies, Jackson is co-founder and on-site manager of the developing Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife, located in the South Carolina foothills.  During her newspaper career, Jackson covered the mountain regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee.  Her investigative reporting for the Charlotte Observer brought her several Pulitzer Prize nominations and a National Conservation Writer of the Year award.  She also has collaborated on several books of non-fiction.

On March 28, The South Carolina State Assembly honored Jackson’s winning of the Weatherford Award with the passage of a resolution offically recognizing her accomplishment.  (For more, visit www.scstatehouse.net  and see Bill 3805)

“The Encyclopedia of Appalachia,” published by the University of Tennessee Press, was the winner for best nonfiction work.  It contains more than 2,000 entries in 30 sections with information on every aspect of Appalachia’s history, land, culture and people.  Researched and developed by the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University, this 1,840-page compendium includes all thirteen states that constitute the northern, central, and southern subregions of Appalachia-from New York to Mississippi.

Journalist and author Rudy Abramson, co-editor of “The Encyclopedia of Appalachia,” was for 25 years Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, covering the U.S. Space Program, the Pentagon and the White House, and environmental issues.  He is the author of the books “Spanning the Century, the Life of W. Averall Harriman” and “Hallowed Ground, Preserving America’s Heritage.”  He also has written for Smithsonian Magazine, Audubon Magazine, Encyclopia Britannica, New York Times Book Review, and Appalachia.  A native of Florence, Alabama, he attended the Columbia University School of Journalism and is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.

Jean Haskell, the encyclopedia’s other editor,  retired as director and professor in the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University. She is author of “The Appalachian Photographs of Earl Palmer,” co-editor of “Performance, Culture, and Identity,” and numerous other publications on Appalachian issues.  In addition to serving in a wide range of activities promoting Appalachian interests, Haskell is past president of the Appalachian Studies Association, and served as curator of the Appalachian program for the 2003 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She holds degrees from University of Memphis and the University of Texas at Austin. Haskell currently resides in Portsmouth, Virginia, where she is vice-president of Commodore Associates, Inc., owners and operators of the historic Commodore Theatre
More than 35 Berea students, staff and faculty presented or attended the ASA Conference, including Dr. Chad Berry, director of the Berea College Appalachian Center and 2006-07 ASA President, and award-winning fiddler and Berea senior Jake Krack, who was a featured entertainer.