One year ago West Virginia lost 29 our of bravest souls. The people who go underground every day to mine the coal that "Keeps the Lights On" all over our great country and the world. These 29 men came from all walks of life, but diverged into this profession probably because for many it is the best means to make a living in Southern West Virginia. Although I did not know any of the miners well, the loss of them all touched me deeply and it still brings me to tears to think of UBB, Sago, Aracoma and others. I can still remember so much about the day the UBB accident occured. It was the day after Easter and my husband's birthday. He had just returned from a trip to Indianapolis where he witnessed West Virginia University lose to Duke in the the Final Four. My father had gotten sick that afternoon so my mother and I took him to the hospital, and they were on stand-by waiting for victims of the accident. On a trip to my car to go get something to drink, I received a Facebook message to pray for the Lynch family because someone in their family was one of the missing miners. Then more messages started coming from various friends about others who were trapped, and stories started coming about those who got out of the mine "just in time" and others who were almost ready to go in. It was a very long night and a very long week for everyone praying that our courageous men would be found alive. Sadly, the outcome was not as we prayed and hoped. All twenty-nine lives were lost.
All West Virginians know that mining accidents happen, and it is a chance that miners take every day when they go to work. There are very few native West Virginians whose families have not lost someone in the mines at some point. In fact, my family lost my grandpa Atha's brother, Donald, in 1946 in a slate fall. He had only returned from serving in the Army during the war weeks before his death in the mines. My husband's family lost his great grandfather also to a slate fall in 1925. Although mining technology and practices are better now than they were in those days, there is still a risk taken by these brave souls every day as they enter the dark underground world of the coal mines.
We remember the UBB miners that were lost each day. Several longtime family friends, church friends, and schoolmates lost fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, grandfathers, or grandsons in that dark mine. As we remember them on April 5, 2011, the one year anniversary of the disaster, I will once again think of one of the lost in particular - Roosevelt "Coach" Lynch. Coach Lynch, as everyone in Oak Hill knew him, was a very well known and respected man. He was one of the football coaches that my husband says he greatly admired as a young athlete. I knew who he was from seeing him on the sidelines at high school games, always with a big smile on his face. I can only remember ever speaking to him once, a few years after high school. I told him that I had graduated with his son, and I can remember him bragging on his children and how proud he was of them. Just as I'm sure he is now while he looks down on them from above.
Sleep sweetly our brave 29. You will never be forgotten!
UBB Tribute - "Coal Miners Note"
There is a movement in West Virginia to wear black on 4/5/11 in memory of those who were lost. I will be wearing my black to remember Coach Lynch and the others who were lost. Will you?
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