If you’re feeling a bit down or anxious or hopeless, consider one of
life’s greatest optimists, Dr. Kenny Hechler.
Dr. Hechler (Ph.D., Columbia University) taught history at
Columbia and Princeton, but came to West Virgina to resume his teaching career
at Marshall University. Eventually, he ran successfully for state offices.
His causes? End strip mining. End mining-off the tops of
Appalachian mountains. Clean up fraud and corruption in Mingo County. He marched
in Selma, Alabama with Martin Luther King Jr.
And yet he was often voted into
office in West Virginia.
At age 96, he ran for the U.S. Senate in a state where environmental
causes are in tension with hard times in the coalfields. He knew
he’d lose—but he ran so that opponents of mountaintop removal mining could
register their opposition. More than 16,000 voters supported him in the
Democratic primary. Here he is, driving at age 96!
At the age of 101, he joined a Climate Ground Zero protest
and crossed onto Massey Energy property, but the police refused to arrest him. A month later at
another protest, he succeeded in being one of 32 people taken into custody.
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