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Homer Hickam credits success to growing up in West Virginia

BECKLEY, W.Va. — Those who drive through Coalwood and the surrounding towns today may have a hard time imagining the town described by Homer Hickam in his best-selling “Rocket Boys,” but Hickam credits that small mining town for the success that he’s had today.

“Everything that I’ve ever succeeded in in life is direct result of the people of Coalwood, and of course the teachers,” Hickam said. “Everything that I’m capable of is because of what they gave me, both in education and also the rules of life that they provided.”

Of course, Hickam is not the only one of the Rocket Boys who found success outside of Coalwood, West Virginia, but they all acknowledge the town and its residents for their respective accomplishments.

Willie “Billy” Rose moved through numerous east coast towns, ultimately working for American Mine Research, developing products for the safety and productivity of the coal mining industry.

“So it’s been a productive life, I think, all as a result of this education given to me by some wonderful teachers many, many, many, many years ago,” he said. “I wouldn’t be who I am except for those teachers, and I am grateful.”

In the town of Coalwood, most were more concerned with what lied beneath the earth than what was above it, but that didn’t keep the Rocket Boys from pursuing the dreams only they believed in.

Growing up, Hickam was surrounded by not only the mine itself, but a long lineage of coal miners. His father, grandfather and uncles all worked in the mines, but Hickam knew that his dreams would extend far beyond the McDowell County line.

“I never thought that because of my mom, I think, pretty talking down the idea of working in the coal mine, I never thought that I would do it,” Hickam said. “I have to say though, I did work in the coal mine during the summers while I worked through college, and I learned down there a little bit why my dad liked it so much.

“There is so much to do down there, so it’s interesting in a way, watching it all come together and working to make it come together,” he said. “I began to really appreciate why he liked the profession so much and why other coal miners do like the profession.”

The coal industry, however, has changed dramatically since the days when Hickam called McDowell County home.

“These days, coal miners are not the pick and the shovel guys, they’re really more like computer operations to a certain extent, so it’s now a very high-tech profession and a very well-paid profession,” Hickam said. “The problem is one person can do what 100 used to be able to do, so it’s never going to come back the way it used to be.”

Hickam returns to southern West Virginia every fall for the annual Rocket Boys Festival, which has been held in Beckley since 2012.

While the festival is no longer held in Coalwood, the Rocket Boys have been back on occasion to visit their hometown, though it is very different than how they left it.

“It kind of breaks our hearts to go back to Coalwood because we remember it the way it was and now it’s not like that anymore. A lot of the houses are falling down, and there are very few people who still live there,” Hickam said.

The other Rocket Boys have similar views of their hometown, which is left only a shell of what it was before the coal mine stopped production in October 1982.

Roy Lee Cooke said he feels that himself and the other Rocket Boys look at Coalwood in a very idealistic way.

“It was a very special coal company because the person that developed it and owned it, the initial owner, was an enlightened industrialist,” Cooke said. “He was a very wealthy man who believed if you could keep the family happy, you got more productivity out of the male who worked in the coal mine.”

However, Cooke said when the mine left Coalwood, so did that kind of thinking.

“We look at it very idealistically, that the school is the best school in the world and everything was perfect,” he said. “Of course it really wasn’t, but if you look at it now compared to then, things have really gone downhill.”

Jimmie “O’Dell” Carroll now lives in Scott County, Virginia, and feels sad when he visits the town of Coalwood that he once called home.

“Billy and I went to Welch (Friday), and Roy met us too. We didn’t get to Coalwood, but it’s all the same through there,” Carroll said. “It’s just like death and destruction. There’s dilapidated, abandoned buildings, and when we grew up, everything was pristine.”

Carroll said that Coalwood was the ground jewel of coal camps because of James W. Carter, who owned Carter Coal Company.

“We had sidewalks. I don’t think there’s another coal camp anywhere that’s got sidewalks,” he said. “It’s a small thing, but that’s the way he built it.”

But since the mine closed in 1982, things have changed, Carroll said.

“I told Billy coming out yesterday, ‘My heart’s crying,’” he said. “I mean, that’s the way it is out west at all of the silver mines and gold mines. They just rot into the ground, and there’s just a few structures left and people.”

Hickam added: “But we’re happy that the church is still going strong, and there’s still a number of things that are still going strong there so we have hope that ultimately Coalwood will come back a little bit.”





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