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Radio Diaries

Last Man on the Mountain – Updated

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2014

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A few years ago, we produced a story about the greatest underdog we’d ever met: Jimmy Weekley.

Jimmy was the last remaining resident of Pigeonroost Hollow, West Virginia. Jimmy spent most of the last two decades fighting one of the largest coal companies in the country in an attempt to save his hometown. He said he was born in Pigeonroost Hollow, and he planned to die there. This year, he did. He was 74. Today on the Radio Diaries Podcast, we’re remembering Jimmy Weekley, The Last Man on the Mountain.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to Radio Diaries. This is Joe.

0:03.0

And this is Elisa.

0:05.0

And we want to thank everybody who has donated to Radiotopia's annual fundraiser so far.

0:09.0

We are coming to the end of the road, but we still have yet to reach our goal of a thousand donors.

0:15.3

So we want to let you know some of the things that your donation supports here at Radio Diaries.

0:21.5

We just finished our big series, The Unmarched Graveyard, and there's some expenses that you might expect, you know, paying for our producers, paying for research, paying for some gear, and there's some unexpected things.

0:34.0

Elisa, is there anything that was kind of unexpected?

0:37.0

For sure, like with the first story that I worked on, I interviewed a woman named Susan

0:41.2

Harlebert, whose son had died and was buried on Hard Island.

0:45.4

And after I interviewed her, I realized that she had actually never visited her son's grave.

0:50.1

So we decided to set that up.

0:52.0

You know, I went to pick her up a couple hours north of the city that cost us some gas money.

0:56.4

We put her up in a hotel and I bought a bunch of pizza and bagels to power us through the weekend.

1:01.7

And it was a really beautiful and

1:04.0

carb-filled couple days.

1:07.0

We hope that gives you a glimpse at some of the things that your donation helps

1:10.0

to support here at Radio Diaries

1:12.0

and we hope that you'll support us and the rest of the shows in the Radio Topia family.

1:17.0

You can donate today at radiotopia.F.M. slash donate. That's Radiotopia. F.M. slash donate.

1:24.0

And thank you so much for your support. Radio Topia. From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond.

1:41.6

My favorite section of the newspaper is the obituary page. Obituaries introduce

1:46.5

us to people we never got to meet. They turn lives into stories. Everybody deserves

...

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