By Ariel Fugate, Mountain Association for Community and Economic Development (MACED)
This article appeared in the Volume 1, Issue 2 Fall 2019 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue.
Radio station WSGS, based in Perry County, Kentucky, is working to preserve memories of the Hazard, Kentucky, area through a developing a photo archive. Shane Sparkman, one of the owners of the radio station, WSGS, started the “Flashback” program on the radio because he has an interest in Hazard history. “Flashback” references something that happened on a particular day in history in East Kentucky. Shane also began developing an archive of historical photos and sharing those through the radio station’s Facebook. Many of the photos have been donated to WSGS, including photos from well-known local photographers Sanders Petrey and Paul Gordon.
Recently, the Sparkmans took in a donation of 100,000 negatives. Sparkman serves on the board of the Bobby Davis Museum and Park, which houses more historic photos of the area, and hopes that one day they can have a systematic way of preserving all of these items from Hazard’s past.
WSGS is currently looking for funding to hire an intern to work on a digital archive of the photos so they can be made even more available for the public. You can read more about the Sparkman’s photo archiving project here: https://maced.org/appalachias-new-day/preserving-histories/
One Comment
Paul Petrey
Thank you all for finding these jewels, archiving and sharing them. The editing and music make them
even more wonderful!