Trey Kay is now traveling in West Virginia, interviewing many people for his new radio documentary on the real beginning of the “culture wars” that has shook the world, the Kanawha County Textbook Case. He came in to visit with me and he had a chance to finally meet someone he has known about for his entire life, but never met - Ken Hechler.

Below is my November 17th original story on Mr. Kay and his latest radio documentary project.

Trey Kay is one of America’s leading radio documentarians, winning awards and producing indie radio documentaries for years. He was born and raised in Charleston, WV and is now working on a radio doc about the famous Kanawha Textbook Controversey. If you would like to contact him - with information you have on the subject, or want to support the project financially, e-mail him at - TreyKay@aol.com . Much more on the project and Mr. Kay below.

Dear Friends, Some of you I have spoken to or corresponded with recently and others it’s been a long, long time since we’ve had contact.  Regardless of when we were last in touch, I hope that this mass e-mail finds you well.  If I haven’t spoken to you in a long time, I am married, we have an eleven-year-old son and we live in Red Hook, NY, which is about two hours north of NYC.   These days, I make most of my living as a radio journalist.  It’s because of my most recent radio project that I write to you. (More on my work and this project below.) By the way, I’ve been totally consumed with this project and have precious little time to write individual letters.  So, hence, the mass e-mail.  I hope that you will understand.For the past several months, I have been producing an audio documentary about the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy - an event that I (and some of you) lived through while growing up in the Mountain State.  I have long been fascinated with what happened in Kanawha back in 1974, but have become even more interested after reading some scholarly reports that characterized the event as one of the “first shots” of today’s culture wars.  In early September, I made a grant application to the West Virginia Humanities Council.  Some of you may recall me writing and asking for help in raising $5000 in matching funds for that grant.  Thankfully, many of you responded with financial support, which made me eligible for the grant.I am happy and proud to announce that last week, I learned that I received $20,000 from the Humanities Council, which is the maximum amount that they offer for projects like this.  As you can imagine, I am ecstatic to learn this good news and part of the reason for writing this note is to crow a little about my good fortune!The Humanities Council grant is an enormous vote of confidence that this worthy and relevant project will be completed, but the truth is that still there are additional funds that need to be raised and that’s the reason for this note.  I am hoping that you might be able to help me with a financial contribution.Of course, I am well aware of the recent economic down turn and that this dire financial situation may have adversely effected your ability to help.  That said, when I made my application to the Humanities Council, it was many small contributions (between $50 and $400) that allowed me to raise the prerequisite matching funds.  If you could help me, even in a small way, I would be eternally grateful.If you are interested in making a contribution, thank you.  If you can pass this information to someone who might be able to offer financial help, thanks again.  If you can do both, bless you! For you or any one else to make a contribution, please make your tax deductible check out to the Kanawha Valley Historical and Preservation Society and mail it to:Trey Kay
19 James Court
Red Hook, NY 12571Just so you know, since applying to the Humanities Council, we have submitted funding requests to the Clay Foundation, Daywood Foundation, CRC Foundation, Maier Foundation, H. P. and Anne S. Hunnicutt Foundation, Bernard H. and Blanche E. Jacobson Foundation, Herscher Foundation, Annenberg Foundation and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  In the next few months, I will be submitting applications to the National Endowment for the Humanities and other national philanthropic organizations. 

As to how the project is progressing, I am delighted to announce that the piece is going to be edited by Deb George, who has been an NPR editor for over fifteen years.  Deb’s work has received numerous awards including the DuPont-Columbia Gold and Silver Batons, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Casey Award for reporting on children.  With her guidance, I am confident that our final product will be of a very high quality and that it will be completed and ready for broadcast in the fall of 2009, which is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Textbook Controversy.  Although it is certain that this hour-long documentary will air on West Virginia Public Radio, it has not been a sure thing that a shorter version will air on national programs like NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition or All Things Considered.  Deb’s involvement with this project significantly increases the possibility of this story reaching a national audience.

On another recent note, when I embarked on this project, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find former Kanawha County School Board Member Alice Moore, the person who sparked the controversy.  I had been told that she was dead, but to my great delight, I had a wonderful conversation with her the other day and she has agreed to be interviewed for the documentary.

In closing, I want to let you know how excited I am to have the opportunity to analyze and document this important chapter in West Virginia and American history. What happened in Kanawha was, among other things, a battle over differing cultural beliefs.  The recent presidential election proved to me just how “culture war” issues continue to divide Americans.  Sometimes, I think that this deep division will never be mitigated and will always be with us.  Still, I believe that a documentary, like the one that I am planning, may do a great deal to help Americans better understand the anatomy of a culture war and that this might help citizens learn to be more respectful to people’s “otherness” and differing core beliefs.  In the end, I believe that listeners will conclude that, “This is what democracy sounds like” and that democracy arises out of conflicts like the one in Kanawha - a fierce example of protest and debate.

Sincerely,

Trey Kay

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Information about Trey’s  Kanawha
County Textbook Controversy audio documentary project.
There are many reasons why I am choosing to produce an audio documentary on this significant event in West Virginia history.  I guess the chief reason is that I believe what happened in Kanawha County, back in 1974, was a fascinating struggle that continues to resonate in our nation’s social and political discourse.  Many historians and scholars agree with me.  They believe that the “first shots” in what we’ve come to know as the “culture wars” were fired in Kanawha County.  Dr. William Martin of Rice University affirms this in his 1996 book With God On Our Side in a chapter devoted to the Kanawha “textbook wars.”  (His book was companion reading to a six-part PBS documentary of the same title.) [ The VHS film is available at WVLC in Charleston. The episode is called “With God on our side : the rise of the religious right in America : The Zeal of Thy House, 1969-1974.” Also available from First Run Features.] Oklahoma State University’s Dr. Carol Mason, who was in school in Kanawha during the controversy (George Washington High School Class of 1982), also believes that our home county played a significant role in future cultural and political struggles.  She has written a forthcoming book about the Kanawha tumult, which is due out next summer.  Both Martin and Mason will be working with me on this project. The Kanawha struggle is often portrayed as a minority of “hillbilly Bible bangers” raising Hell over a collection of smutty books, but I see it as much more than that.  It was a clash that pitted liberal vs. conservative, religious vs. secular, wealthy vs. poor, black vs. white, scholarly elite vs. working class pragmatists. How the battle was waged and how the issues were resolved had a lasting effect on how similar social conflicts would be fought throughout the country in the future. After Kanawha, Bob Dornan was able to land a seat in Congress as a champion of Christian values, the virtually unknown Heritage Foundation was able to find it’s mission and voice, and the textbook publishing industry has never been the same.  It’s a compelling story that I’d like to share with the rest of the nation, as well as West Virginians.

I’d like to have the documentary ready in time for the fall of 2009, which will mark the 35th anniversary of the controversy.  A related reason for doing this now is that this may be the last time that some of the key participants can tell their stories for posterity.  I am looking to interview Alice Moore, Jim Lewis, Ezra Graley, Avis Hill, Charles Quigley, Marvin Horan, Charlie Loeb, Kenneth Underwood, John Hutchinson and Russell Isaacs, to name a few.  As it is, some of the key players like Elmer Fike and Matthew Kinsolving have died.  After the completion of this project, I plan to donate copies of all of my interview tape to the West Virginia Archives.

Since I am from the area and lived through those times, I believe that I am uniquely qualified to present this story in a fair and nuanced way.  Although, I grew up in the part of the community that supported keeping the books in the schools, I am not interested in producing yet another story that tells again how we were right and the “born again creekers” were wrong.  I have come to better understand and empathize with the position of the book protesters and want to do what I can to articulate the “anti-book” point of view, as well as the “pro-book” position.  Eventually, I want to offer reflection of what the whole event meant.  Did anything change as a result?

For the past eight years, I have worked as an independent journalist for nationally-distributed public radio programs like This American Life, Morning Edition, Studio 360, Weekend America and Market Place.  As a matter of fact, I am proud to call myself an “award-winning” journalist because in 2005, I had a segment prominently featured in Studio 360’s Peabody Award-winning show about Melville’s Moby Dick.  In 2007, “I’m Not A Doctor, But I Play One At The Holiday Inn,” a piece that I co-produced for This American Life, was awarded a New York Festivals Gold Medal. In 2006, I worked in television news as an associate producer for the critically-acclaimed PBS/Frontline documentary report called “News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin.”  I am looking to have this documentary heard both locally and nationally. James Muhammad of West Virginia Public Broadcasting has committed to airing this project.  The editor for the piece will be Deb George, who has been an NPR editor for over fifteen years.  Deb’s work has received numerous awards including the DuPont-Columbia Gold and Silver Batons, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Casey Award for reporting on children.  Deb will be instrumental in helping market a shorter version of this documentary to national programs like NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition or All Things Considered.  I also have made plans with West Virginia exhibit organizer Stan Bumgardner to create a traveling exhibit, which will coincide with the airing of this special.  The exhibit will be shown at the Cultural Center, as well as other venues throughout the state.

I am delighted that the Kanawha Valley Historical and Preservation Society (a local not-for-profit organization) has agreed to serve as the project’s fiscal sponsor.  Because of this affiliation, I am able to solicit charitable contributions.  For this project, I am applying for assistance from many funding sources, including West Virginia Humanities Council and also The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.  The feedback that I have received from these organizations leads me to believe that they consider my project a strong candidate for funding. I am also applying for assistance from The Clay Foundation, BB&T West Virginia Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, McJunkin Redman, Daywood Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and several other funding entities.

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Note by author - I worked with a lady who made a film on public school book censorship in Fort Frye Local School District in southeastern Ohio. Unfortunately, I could NOT find the 16 mm film I know existed in the WVLC collection at one time. Here is some information on the filmmaker -

MICHELLE MARDER KAMHI, <aristos@aristos.org>, url: <http://www.aristos.org>, is an independent scholar and critic. She co-edits Aristos (an arts journal informed by Ayn Rand’s philosophy of art), and is co-author of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, published by Open Courtearlier this year. A graduate of Barnard College, she earned an M.A. in Art History at Hunter
College, State University of New York (S.U.N.Y.). Prior to her association with Aristos, she worked as an editor and freelance writer, and conceived, produced, and directed Books Our Children Read, a documentary educational film on literature in the school curriculum.

Here is a link for some materials on the Controversey based at WVU - http://www.as.wvu.edu/WVHistory/documents/107.pdf .

I told Trey Kay that WVPBS broadcast a recent BBC film about a similar controversey in England. The film is called “Filth.”
 

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