The Pikeville Cut-Thru

Eastern Kentuckians literally move mountains. The magazine is named for the spirit exemplified by the Pikeville Cut-Thru. Completed in 1987, the Pikeville Cut-Thru is one of the country’s largest engineering and earth-moving achievements.

Pikeville Cut-Thru

The inspiration of Pikeville mayor William Carter Hambley, construction took fourteen years, involved blasting twenty-three million cubic yards of rock, moving five million cubic yards of dirt, included nearly twenty state and federal agencies, and carried a price tag of sixty million dollars.

The result is a channel – 1,300 feet wide, 3,700 feet long, and 523 feet deep – into which the railroad tracks were relocated and the Big Sandy River diverted. Corridors of U.S. Highways 23, 119, 460 and Kentucky 80 were combined into a four-lane road.

The Cut-Thru created or opened up 390 acres of usable land, nearly doubling the amount of flat land adjacent to the town, all of which is now free from the threat of flooding (Pike County Chamber of Commerce).

The Pikeville Cut-Thru, and similar projects, change the way residents live. The necessary cost of progress, however, is measured in more ways than in dollars. Many homes, my grandparents’ included, were torn down or moved. A way of life comes to an end.

Still, the creative, no-nonsense spirit of the people of Eastern Kentucky continues.

Sarah Adams, of Ligon, KY, is a BSCTC student and a Big Sandy Singer.

Jacob Anderson is a BSCTC student, attending classes at the Pikeville Campus.

Tiffany Bowen, of Whitehouse, is a BSCTC student and plans to pursue a career in the medical field.

Kimberly L. Bradley, of Prestonsburg, KY, is pursuing the associate’s degree in Science.

David Cazden received an Al Smith Fellowship for poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council in 2008. He is the author of one book, Moving Picture (Word Press, 2005) and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Randall Chandler was born in 1941 in Lowmansville, Kentucky. He attended two years at EKU, being an indifferent student at best. He joined the workforce, and at different times in his life has been a salesman, a logger, small business owner, a coal mine electrician, and a long distance truck driver. He says, “Since retiring, I try to do only those things that I enjoy.”

Sheldon Compton is the author of the forthcoming collections The Same Terrible Storm and Where Alligators Sleep (Foxhead Books, 2012). His work has also appeared in several print and online journals including BLIP (formally Mississippi Review Online), Thunderclap Magazine, Emprise Review, Keyhole Magazine, Kudzu, and the Appalachian anthology Degrees of Elevation (Bottom Dog Press, 2011). He survives in Eastern Kentucky. To learn more, visit www.bentcountry.blogspot.com.

Melanie Culbertson, a Salyersville native living in Louisville, is Assistant Professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College in Sellersburg, Indiana. She also teaches as an adjunct instructor at Spalding University in Louisville and formerly taught at the University of Evansville, Indiana. She earned an M.F.A. in creative writing at Indiana University and has published fiction in The American Literary Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Puerto del Sol, The Louisville Review, and others. She was nominated for two national Pushcart Prizes.

Brittany Frasure, of Paintsville, a BSCTC alumnus, is now a student at Pikeville College.

Mikka Gamble, of Salyersville, is a BSCTC student.

Sheila Gollihue, of Martha, is a KCTCS student; her writing has been published in Kudzu, Hazard CTC’s literary journal.

James B. Goode, creative writer, essayist, photographer, and Appalachian scholar, has written about the Appalachian region since undergraduate school in the 1960s.  He has authored four books of poetry and two technical books on coal mining, produced and directed two documentary films, published short stories in two major anthologies and several national magazines, published over 500 poems in national and international magazines, and written over two hundred columns for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Harlan Daily Enterprise, Coal County Extra and various other newspapers and magazines.  His work has appeared in the Kentucky Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Encyclopedia of the Midwest, and anthologies such as Robert Higgs and Ambrose Manning’s Appalachia: Inside Out, The Blair Mountain Anthology, God’s Plenty: Modern Kentucky Writers, Old Wounds, New Words, The Kentucky Book, Yearbook of Modern Poetry, and Forever Bear.

Nathan Hall, 19, of Jackscreek, is a BSCTC student. He said his story “Faustian Bargain” was inspired by the music of his three favorite bands.

Tamara Kay Howard, of Garrett, says she writes of things that “come from the heart.”

Ashton Johnson writes, “It hasn’t been until the last three years that I have found myself actually writing as I have been more into art all my life. As anyone who takes up a pen will know, the first few things he or she writes are always the hardest, but I’ve come to find my niche. I write about whatever inspires me at the time, be it a song, a painting, or anything in between.”

William Loftus is Professor of Psychology at Big Sandy Community and Technical College.

Thomas D. Matijasic is a native of Youngstown, Ohio. He earned a B.A. from Youngstown State University, a M.A. from Kent State University, and a Ph.D. in History from Miami University. He has taught at Big Sandy Community and Technical College since January 1, 1983. Dr. Matijasic has received four BSCTC Great Teacher Awards, five NISOD awards for teaching excellence, and the 2006 Acorn Award. He served as President of the Kentucky Association of Teachers of History (1994) and served three terms on the Kentucky Heritage Council (1994-2006). Dr. Matijasic has published more than twenty articles and thirty book reviews, the most recent entitled, “It’s Personal: Nixon, Liberia and the Development of U.S. African Policy (1957-1974),” WHITE HOUSE STUDIES (2011).

Samantha “Shea” Maynard, is a BSCTC student. She plans to pursue a career in photography.

BSCTC student Kalen Ousley, of Prestonsburg, names H. P. Lovecraft as a strong influence on his writing.

Kayla Price, of Paintsville, is a second-year BSCTC student.

Adam Preece is currently a BSCTC student and plans to further his career in broadcasting.

Darlene Profitt, an Insurance Agent at Nationwide in Prestonsburg the past four years, earned her Associate in Arts Degree from Big Sandy Community and Technical College. She has been married to her wonderful husband, David, for 40 years and has four great children. She enjoys hiking, bowling, movies, and reading.

David Profitt has taught Philosophy and Religion at Big Sandy for six years. He has written poetry and essays for over 40 years. He and his wife Darlene have four children, Dr. Dennis Neil Profitt, Amy Beth Profitt Paxton, Mary Ellen Profitt, and Alison Ruth Profitt. He is retired from the pastoral ministry after 35 years.

Phyllis Puffer received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and her Ph.D. from Michigan State University, all in sociology. She has traveled in over 40 countries, mostly in the Third World.

Born on the day before Thanksgiving in 1957, Marvin Rowland was raised in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, in a community called Beavercreek. While growing up he spent a lot of time in Johnson County, KY, at his grandparents' farm, learning the way of life in Eastern Kentucky. He has three children and three grandchildren, all of whom he adores.

Ariel Salisbury, of Dwale, is a BSCTC student.

Tim Skeen, author of Kentucky Swami, teaches creative writing at California State University, Fresno.

Ken Slone’s poetry collection At Home in the Mountains was published in 2001 by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. Mountain Teacher – An Eastern Kentucky Teacher Tells His Story, an autobiography including stories about teaching nontraditional students, poems, and teaching methods, was published by JSF in 2005. His poems appeared in Coal – A Poetry Anthology. After earning his graduate degree from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH, he returned home to Johnson County, where he lives today with his wife Debbie. Professor of English at Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Ken received the Great Teacher Award in 1999 for teaching his students to take pride in their Appalachian heritage and to write from their hearts.

Joshua Logan Slone, of Wayland, is a BSCTC student.

Tommy Slone is a first-year BSCTC student.

Catherine Smith, of Painstivlle, is a BSCTC student.

Matthew Smith received his B.S. and M.A. from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN.  He teaches Sociology at BSCTC.

Rebecca Smith, of Hueysville, is a second-year student at BSCTC.

Derek Whisman, of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, is Instructor of English at BSCTC.