Protest at the WV Coal Bowl

Temperature rising at the Friends Of Coal Bowl On Saturday morning a group of students and youth demonstrated against the Friends of Coal sponsored Marshall and WVU back yard brawl, meeting and educating folks on the real picture about dirty industry working its way into the universities and major media outlets on a closed bid to the naming of the game series. Ivan met up with Gov. Manchin and told him the views of the students and the discontent of the game's coal labeling.Bill Raney(pres. of the WV coal association) rode in a slow moving Marshall caped golf cart right past us and we just approached him with our message, "Coal Keeps WV Poor" and "Stop MTR", he had no response but a glare and a smirk. Students from Marshall, WVU Sierra Club,WV Student Environmental Action Coalition,Glenville and Concord were represented and outspoken to passer-byers and gave out literature through the game. The response was good, and a professor and member of the Appalachian Studies Association stayed around the rally area talking to us and made clear the importance of not letting the industry feel rewarded for using the football teams and fans as logos to win over good PR. Only bits of hostility flared, one situation specifically was regarding a overly excited fan came over at spat some angry coal mongering words and knocked beer over the table and into a fellas lap, and turned and bolted through the crowd. I did have to regroup with the others after i had been out on the corner of a busy and swarming part of the stadium and started to get threats from intoxicated fans who kept passing by and then circle behind me to grown out harsh statements about those critical of the coal industry and how we should pride the heads of industry. I simply flipped the sign from "Coal Keeps WV Poor" to "Friends of the Mountains". Overall a success, thanks to Briana McElfish helping out from Marshall University, great to meet with other young folks from all over WV demanding that we should seriously evaluate whether we want large utility (Appalachian Power Park baseball stadium) and industry spokespeople (Friends of Coal) the mouthpiece to deceit the public in thinking that the only choice we in WV have is to sacrifice our labor, water, mountains and culture to serve the greed heads. Its time to shift to serving our own people and get dirty money out of sports and out of the public and learning institutions. Bobby Mitchell Coal River Mtn. Watch Intern September 10th

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