Levon Baker was a Knott county KFTC member from up on the Right Fork of Beaver. He worked for many years as a deep mine engineer for Southeast Coal Co. He's been a KFTC member for the last 5-6 years. He became involved with KFTC when CONSOL opened up a deep mine and created a big valley fill on his property without his permission.

He liked to say, "I've sat on both sides of the table, with the coal company and with the citizens and I can tell you this; when a new law is created, the coal companies don't try to figure out how to comply with the law, they always try to figure out how to get around the laws."

I'll miss Levon, he had the strength and the courage to stand-up in front of hundreds of miners, many of them he knew, at the Hazard hearing on Mountaintop Removal and tell them that what we are doing to the land and the people is wrong. I remember riding home with him in the car and he told me, "The truth is fifty percent of the men in that room agree with me. And another twenty five percent will agree with me on their ride home. And the last twenty five percent just never will agree with me."

Levon had been suffering for many years with complications from black lung. He passed away over the weekend from a heart attack.

The funeral will be in Hindman at the Nelson Frazier funeral home Tuesday April 20th at 11:00 AM.

If you have other stories you would like to share about Levon please post them in the comments.