SUMMARY: Kentucky State Police (KSP) are investigating two related shooting incidents in Fayette County on July 13, 2025. The first occurred during a traffic stop near Bluegrass Airport when suspect Guy House, 47, shot a KSP trooper, causing serious injuries. House, who had active warrants, fled and stole a vehicle. The second shooting happened about an hour later at Richmond Road Baptist Church, where House shot four people before being fatally wounded by Lexington Police officers. Two victims died at the scene, while two others are critically injured. The investigation is ongoing.

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by Jim Branscome, Kentucky Lantern
July 14, 2025

The Trump administration’s proposal to slash Appalachian Regional Commission funding by 93% — from over $200 million to just $14 million — threatens to dismantle one of the last federal bridges to the region. This drastic cut comes at a moment when, despite significant progress, the coalfields and rural counties of Appalachia remain mired in persistent economic distress.  

The urgency of this threat is real: The future of ARC, and the future of Appalachia itself, hang in the balance.  

For the first time since the coal and timber barons, the railroads, and low-wage furniture and textile factories invaded the region in the late 19th century, Appalachia is in a position to control its future. That future will require more visionary thinking than ARC has demonstrated since its birth in 1965, but the agency is needed to implement new ways of development.

The 1964 President’s ARC Report, commissioned by President John F. Kennedy and chaired by James Roosevelt, famously called Appalachia “an island of poverty in a sea of affluence.” That phrase, rooted in the stark realities of Central Appalachia’s coalfields, still resonates today. While the region has moved closer to parity with the rest of the nation, the coalfields remain an unfulfilled promise. 

If ARC has a father, it was John Whisman of Hazard, Kentucky, who convinced 13 governors to back a joint state/federal agency to build highways, create development districts, and prioritize regional planning.  That was a remarkable achievement for a very energetic Jaycee who early in his career sold inflatable buildings before in the early 1960s becoming a state employee under Govs. Combs and Breathitt promoting the ARC concept.  He became the states co-chairman of ARC at its inception.

Whisman once told me the genius of the Appalachian Regional Commission was that it “bribed” governors to focus on their most neglected citizens.

Kentucky Gov. Bert Combs was the first governor to buy into Whisman’s vision and helped persuade the rest of the region’s political establishment to get aboard. 

The agency’s politics and geographical outlines have always been complex. New York joined because of Sen. Robert Kennedy; Mississippi because of Rep. Jamie Whitten. Johnny Waters of Sevierville, Tennessee, who helped ignite Sen. Howard Baker’s political career as his campaign chair for student body president at the University of Tennessee, served as federal co-chair during my tenure at ARC.  

Still, the nation resisted focusing federal resources on just one region, no matter the sacrifice that region has made for the whole nation. In Congress, a representative from Iowa would rise during appropriations debates to call ARC “the longest gravy train in American history.”  

Politics thus overruled geographers in defining Appalachia.  What was once referred to as the “Southern Highlands” by the Council of the Southern Mountains and most researchers, Appalachia suddenly had Pittsburgh and Birmingham in its fold and extended down to Elvis Presley’s hometown in northern Mississippi. Central Appalachia, mainly the 60 coalfield counties in Southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, according to ARC’s definition, had to share federal dollars with 423 counties in ARC’s official territory.  Spreading ARC’s appropriation across a population that now stands at 26.3 million left little more than a few dabs to pass around.   

(Federal level attention to the region has a long history. President Abraham Lincoln charged General O.O. Howard, the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, to “do something” for the mountaineers who had defied the Confederacy and supported the Union.  Howard’s efforts resulted only in Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Tennessee, and the clapboard fire hazard called Howard Hall, a men’s dormitory at Berea College where I alternatively froze and sweated during my sophomore year.)  

Appalachian Regional Commission’s impact has been uneven

When I joined ARC in 1969, I was one of only three regional natives at an agency dominated by outsiders transferred from the Department of Commerce.  I recall at one point more money per capita had gone into the mountains of Maryland than to any other region, further diluting funds for Central Appalachia, the area that justified the agency’s mission. ARC’s reach across 13 states diluted its original coalfield focus and left the region’s deepest needs only partially addressed.   

Despite $6 billion invested in more than 34,000 non-highway projects since 1965, ARC’s impact has been uneven. The agency’s greatest achievements — relocating rivers, building highways and improving infrastructure — are visible, but so are its failures. It never tackled the low taxation of coal properties, absentee land ownership, or the health and safety crises wrought by extractive industries. 

ARC never challenged the Tennessee Valley Authority’s introduction and strong financial and political support of strip mining in Eastern Kentucky. It has said nothing about one of the most destructive environmental impacts anywhere in the nation — mountaintop removal mining, which has cut the tops off more than 500 mountains and filled up valleys and waterways with rock and debris that accelerate flooding. 

In short, the Appalachian Regional Commission has never proffered a vision for change that is appropriate and useful in this century of technologically driven development. Federal black lung benefits alone have funneled nearly $50 billion into the region, dwarfing ARC’s total investment and highlighting the scale of unmet need. 

In fairness, ARC’s legacy includes some remarkable, if complicated, physical transformations. The Pikeville Cut-Through Project, completed in 1987, stands as one of the largest civil engineering undertakings in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 18 million cubic yards of earth and rock were moved — making it second only to the Panama Canal among earth-moving projects in this hemisphere. The project rerouted the Levisa Fork River, eliminated perennial flooding, opened up hundreds of acres for development, and transformed Pikeville into a regional hub. Yet, Pikeville flooded again in the historic Eastern Kentucky flood of July 2022 and again in February. 

In Grundy, Virginia, ARC funds helped relocate the entire business district to higher ground after repeated flooding. The redevelopment included the construction of a unique three-story Walmart atop a public parking garage, a symbol of both economic renewal and the challenges of reinventing a coal town’s identity.  Still, the $6 billion, combined with Appalachian Development Highway spending in the neighborhood of $30 billion or so, is only pocket change for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett. 

A half-century on, Appalachia has indeed moved closer to parity. Retrospective ARC studies confirm that conditions in Appalachia have improved greatly, and the region is catching up with the rest of the nation. Gayle Manchin, ARC’s federal co-chair and wife of retired Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, echoes that cautiously upbeat note: While noting important gains, she stresses there is still work to be done to reach true parity. 

Recent data show that unemployment in Appalachia dropped by 0.8 percentage points over the past decade — twice the national rate of improvement. Homeownership is now about 6.7 percentage points higher than the U.S. average. Median family income growth is robust in many urban counties, and in 96 ARC counties, median income matches or exceeds the national median. Poverty has fallen across most Appalachian states, but coalfield poverty rates are consistently nearly double the national rate of 12.4%. In many counties in Eastern Kentucky, poverty is double Appalachia’s 10-year overall average of 14.3%, according to ARC.

Land reform could unlock local potential

 President Lyndon Johnson, signing the ARC legislation in March 1965, promised it would launch Appalachia on “the bright highway of hope.”   

Yet, many Appalachian counties still fall in the nation’s poorest 10%. The region’s median household income is only about 82% of the U.S. median.  Appalachia’s population is older and growing more slowly. In Appalachia, 27.3% of adults (age 25-plus) have earned at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to the U.S. national average of 35%. 

So, while the region as a whole has made undeniable progress, areas like Central Appalachia still trail far behind the nation economically and socially. The latest ARC report on county economic status, for fiscal year 2026, identifies 75 counties in Appalachia as “distressed.” Distressed counties are considered the most economically depressed, ranking in the worst 10% of the nation’s counties. Kentucky has more “distressed” counties than any other state.  In many Eastern Kentucky counties, federal transfer payments — Social Security, black lung and other benefits — make up well over half of taxpayer income, according to the IRS. 

Ron Eller, retired professor of Appalachian Studies at the University of Kentucky and a Whisman Scholar at ARC, has long argued that true regional renewal requires more than infrastructure and outside investment. As Eller puts it: “Struggling regions of the country need land reform, including the reduction of absentee land ownership and the promotion of alternative land use.”  

Eller’s research highlights how generations of absentee corporate and elite ownership have drained Appalachia of its wealth and stifled local development. He emphasizes that growth without real development — without addressing who owns and benefits from the land — will never be enough to reverse the region’s fortunes.   

Coal and timber companies own 30% to 70% of the land in counties in the coalfields, frequently the best lands for development. The largest single landowner in the region is the federal government. 

These facts of land ownership and scandalously low taxation were documented in a 1980 study championed by ARC Federal Co-Chair Al Smith, but the study was shelved and has never been updated. 

Remaking the Appalachian Regional Commission for the 21st century

To truly transform the region, the Appalachian Regional Commission must move beyond the legacy of highways and infrastructure and embrace a tech-forward, community-driven vision that addresses the root causes of generational poverty and outmigration.  

To begin, implementing a transparent, digital land ownership system would finally expose the web of absentee ownership and hidden tax loopholes that have plagued the region for generations. Local governments could plan smarter, enforce fair taxation, and ensure that the wealth of Appalachia benefits its people.  

Next, a modern homesteading act could acquire land from bankrupt and/or ailing coal and timber companies and offer it to returning families and entrepreneurs, reversing outmigration and seeding new communities above the floodplain. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is leading the charge to locate communities on higher ground above the flood plain. Coal and timber companies have been scarce in offering their lands for this effort. ARC could have, and still can, take up Eller’s challenge to initiate land reform in the coalfields. 

Using modern analytics, ARC could help counties enforce honest property taxes on coal, timber, and mineral holdings. Even modest improvements could generate millions annually for local schools, clinics and infrastructure — resources long denied by absentee corporations. Support for innovative community land trusts would keep wealth local, allowing former mine sites to be redeveloped for agriculture, housing or recreation.  

This grassroots land reform would prevent future extraction of both resources and profits and focus on renewable power, innovative agriculture and timber management, repurposing millions of acres of damaged land, and a host of other development practices that are being tried in other regions and nations. In fact, all over the mountains efforts like these are being undertaken by community groups, but those efforts need large infusions of federal support if they are to uplift the region to national economic and social levels.  Sadly, the Trump administration is proposing to stripmine away the few budgetary dollars currently allocated to these efforts. The cuts just imposed on Medicaid, food aid through SNAP and other programs will darken the bright spots of regional progress. 

Doubling down on education, health care and job training — delivered via technology — would help coalfield counties overcome geographic barriers. Expanding community colleges and vocational programs can equip the next generation to build a diversified economy. Strengthening community development organizations ensures that Appalachian residents — not outside investors — shape their own future. Democratic planning tools can give real voice to those most affected by policy decisions. 

These suggested reforms are not “feel-good” measures. They are systemic, targeted responses to the structural causes of poverty and underdevelopment. As one local leader put it, “there’s not one silver bullet to replace coal … there are a lot of silver BBs.” Each incremental step toward local control and accountability helps reverse a century of extractive policy and absentee governance.   

Calling JD Vance

Restoring hope and trust to a region long disappointed by promises of sustained aid that never came is critical bedrock for change.  I’ll be the first to admit that thinking these things can happen in the current Gilded Age environment is a truly Herculean leap of faith. 

That brings me to Vice President JD Vance. With roots in Breathitt County, Kentucky, and a professed concern for Appalachia, Vance is in a position to fight for the region. But so far, his only major initiative tied to the region has been AppHarvest — a flashy but failed indoor farming venture based in Morehead. Vance invested in the business and sat on the board with Martha Stewart. 

If Vance and his Silicon Valley allies want to prove their new approaches to development and governance, supporting ARC and pushing for genuine reforms would be a good place to start. Appalachia can be the proving ground for whether government can work differently, and better. If Vance and the tech innovators who talk about reimagining government are serious, Appalachia offers a perfect laboratory for bold, non-welfare reforms that could set a new model for federal engagement. 

The region that was once “an island of poverty in a sea of affluence” stands at a crossroads. The bridge that ARC represents is more necessary than ever — not as a relic of the past, but as the foundation for a bold, tech-forward, and community-driven future.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

The post Why US should not abandon its debt to Appalachia appeared first on kentuckylantern.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article takes a critical stance on the Trump administration’s proposed drastic cuts to Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) funding, highlighting the ongoing economic distress in Central Appalachia and the need for sustained federal investment and reform. The tone advocates for expanded government intervention and systemic changes like land reform, enhanced taxation, and community-driven development to address poverty and underdevelopment. It frames ARC as a vital federal bridge and criticizes past and current underinvestment. While acknowledging some progress, it calls for stronger social programs, education, and tech-forward solutions, aligning with a center-left perspective that favors active government involvement in economic and social equity issues.

SUMMARY: Sunday started cloudy and muggy in Louisville, warming into the lower 90s by afternoon. Expect scattered showers and storms moving in tonight, potentially bringing heavy downpours and gusty winds capable of knocking down power lines and tree limbs, similar to yesterday. Southern Indiana faces warnings for strong winds and heavy rain, with showers developing around Louisville, especially south and east of town. The main storm line is expected around 9-10 PM, followed by lingering light rain overnight. Monday will be mostly cloudy with some morning showers, then afternoon sun and highs in the upper 80s. Rain chances will persist through the week with typical summer afternoon storms.

WLKY meteorologist Eric Zernich’s Sunday evening forecast

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