Larry Gibson

Larry Gibson - as presented by Regina Hendrix at the 25th birthday of the West Virginia Seirra Club Chapter on October 10, 2009. The 25 Years of Exemplary Activism award was presented to Larry by Regina the next day on Kayford Mountain.

I first met Larry Gibson shortly after I retired and returned to Charleston, WV in 1998. At that time he had been involved in the stop MTR battle for more than 10 years. During the first years after his 1986 return he worked mostly alone.

Larry was born on Kayford in 1946. In 1946, Kayford was a bustling little community with one thousand homes. Larry's father was laid off from his deep mining job in the mid 50's and the family followed the Hillbilly Highway which back then ran north to Cleveland. The Gibson family, especially Larry, had a rough time in Cleveland - somewhat like the family in "The Dollmaker."

Larry remained in Cleveland until 1986 when he was disabled in an industrial accident at General Motors. He returned to WV to find that Kayford had been depopulated and decimated. Most of the land had been purchased by the coal companies and the homes had been destroyed.

However, despite the fact that no one lived on Kayford and the deep mines were closed, lo and behold, the state was out widening the road to Kayford and they were reinforcing bridges. (What's going on here?)

The 50 acres within the Stanley Heirs park was all that was left in private ownership. Larry set about organizing to reclaim the cemetery and form the Stanley Heirs organization. Thus began a long period of intimidation and violence which Larry will tell you about tomorrow.