A group of us were at what you now would call the "founding meeting" when we met in Hazard and talked about issues.  As I recall, one of the big problems at the time that we were trying to address was how to tax unmined coal.  The Kentucky Constitution says that all properties should be cashed at fair tax value and it wasn’t being done.  So that and the Broad Form Deed issue and strip mining issues generally, brought us together.  Joe Szakos, I think that Joe might have organized the meeting.  I think the book [Making History:  The First Ten Years of KFTC] has a pretty good history about that.

    We had a flip chart and we we’re trying to figure out what to name it.  I’m credited with suggesting calling it the Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition.  Which later, it was changed to Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.  Which made some of us sort of sad, but is probably a better title for it these days.  So, you’d have to say that I was there from the beginning.  It was ’81… 1981. 

     Joe really gets credit for the follow up.  I don’t know how many additional smaller meetings there really were before we got organized.  I was the Director then, as I was for the next 25 years, of AppalRed.  When we had an office here, I had loaned some place downstairs to Joe and so the first office, I think, was out of our building.  Joe worked out of our building- rented some space.  Rented or borrowed, whatever.  I think one of the major first efforts was in Martin County with the Martin County Citizens over the issue of their housing which was sort of related to what we’ve continued to do.  What was really a mining problem was an issue of trying to move a community out to do some housing. 

    You know it’s hard to think back on it, on our chapter meetings, because it was an east Kentucky wide group.  We hadn’t even started chapters.  But, as I recall,  we had a group here at the time- sort of  a local grassroots group- called, The Floyd County Save Our Land Club.  And we made an effort and we had several efforts back then in the early 80s and maybe even in the late 70s to try and do something about the effects of the Broad Form Deed.  The Save Our Land Club at one point asked for the Attorney General’s opinion to determine the legality of a county wide ordinance that would prohibit strip mining within the county.  I think some of those leaders, Fred Harris, the people who were involved in that group were among the early folks locally that had some association with KFTC.  I think 1984, was the  first time we went to the legislature. We proposed a legislative amendment.  There had been some earlier efforts to stop the Broad Form Deed, I think in '82, to require landowners consent.  And there was an earlier case we were involved in, legally, that was a landowner consent case that the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down.  But those early meetings get mixed up in my mind a little bit. 

    Our son  did the first KFTC mailing list.  He used to come in after school and work with Joe and put the members together and did the mailings on the first computers that were around.  We at AppalRed were very involved with trying to draft this legislation and get it through and of course, the courts struck it down. And then we had this super Broad Form Deed which KFTC promoted- first the statute and then, with Clayton Little over here in Pike County sponsoring, the Constitutional Ammendment.  This ultimately went to the Kentucky Supreme Court in a case I’m proud to have argued there.  I’m not sure if I remember early meetings other than getting together whenever we were called together.  It’s funny, I don’t…in the early 80s legal services were attacked and had some real serious funding battles.  In 1980 President Reagan proposed to eliminate funding for legal service programs and we were very involved in budgetary battles and survival battles in the early 80s, so much of my time in the early 80s was really devoted to that and survival. 

      I just think it’s a wonderful evolution. I wouldn’t say any of us- you might come across someone that says they foresaw it- but I don’t think that we envisioned that the group would broaden it’s scope into become a state-wide social justice organization.  I think that it’s been a wonderful development.

    Did I think it would be around 25 years or more?  I could see it developing once it got it’s feet on the ground.  The mining issues were so strong and there was such a need for folks to be involved at a grassroots level that I could see that continuing.  Especially because there were some really strong local leaders, local folks, involved.  KFTC has been really fortunate in having those folks come along at the right time.  Joe Begley, Patty Wallace, Mary Jane Adams and some of the people over in Leslie County that we worked with in those early years. Joe Begley was one of my biggest heroes.  But these environmental issues were not going to go away and I certainly hoped that it would be there. 

    Now when you think back on it, the 1988 Broad Form Deed campaign, which started maybe in 1987, that’s only 6 years after the first meeting! I think after that  it was a logical extension that KFTC would still be around.  When you go to the first two or three meetings, I don’t think that people think, “Oh we’re going to be here for 25 years.” But I think that the stronger the group got, the more people felt, “Oh, this is going to be around.” 

    My only regret was always that it wasn’t there 20 years earlier.  Because there’s a lot of history and you have the Widow Combs and all those folks who really tried, but were not successful in being able to stem this strip mining tide.  Even when the Constitutional Amendment was passed, you really wished it was 20 years earlier so that land owners had some way to assert their rights.  But, I don’t think that anyone would foresee that the group has done as well as it has done or as broad as it’s become as a social justice group or as well funded as it’s become.

     I think what made it successful is a very good model, good staff support, and most importantly, the involvement and work of local people. Local people who are involved, who care, who are willing to show up and willing to go to Frankfort, drive to Frankfort, devote their own time and have issues and causes that they believe in and are not represented otherwise.  There are very few organizations like KFTC that are willing to speak out for folks that don’t have a voice and [they] are probably the major share of our population.

    Well, I would hope that the focus on social justice as well as the mining issues, the east Kentucky mining issues would continue to be important. I think that all of us want to have good communities where the quality of life is better than it is and where you have more resources and the county’s responsive to the citizens’ needs.  We all want economic development, I think, and we all want better pay.  There are a lot of inequities in society that I think KFTC is trying to address and I think that’s important.  I’m glad that we’re doing it. 

    One of the efforts that I’ve been involved in for ten years is the creation of our East Kentucky Science Center, which is a local effort.  It’s a non-profit.  We were able to get some funding, some money in the legislature and we have a facility we managed to get built that has a Planetarium and a multi-purpose classroom and an exhibit area.  But the purpose of what we were trying to do and still trying to do is to raise the consciousness of the citizens and their children in math and science.  So that we are truly taking about Silicone Hollows not just Silicone Valleys.  We’ve got the brain-power in this region to get there. 

    We have to improve our educational system in eastern Kentucky.  My hope would be that that’s an issue that KFTC could get involved with in a bigger way.  There are groups like the Prichard Committee and advocacy organizations that are doing that, but even their efforts are on the larger, on the state-wide effort.  It’s hard.  You need parent involvement, you need people to work on those things everyday, because education is very, very important. We’ve talked about that at some annual meetings in the past- you’ve always got to keep your eye on priorities that aren’t always addressed by others.  I would hope that we continue to work on creating a better society in this area. And that we can make the Canary Project work, to make coal pay.  We’re not paying the true price of coal right now and energy issues are important.  It is important to look at energy consumption issues, and at alternative energy forms so that energy can be affordable for working persons, seniors and low-income folks.  I think that there’s plenty to be done and that we need to keep going down the track that we’ve begun.