(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Cheri Russo, Community Engagement Manager here at WOUB Public Media.

- And I'm Evan Shaw, Producer Director here at WOUB.

- Welcome to WOUB's "Our Ohio" program.

"Our Ohio" is a High School documentary film project that WOUB worked on in conjunction with American Documentary POV, and with funding support from the corporation for public broadcasting.

The students produced independent films that told their own personal and cultural stories.

During this program, we're gonna show you some of those short documentary-style films created by the High School students, and look at how examining their identity and Appalachian culture impacted these students.

- That's right, Cheri, we worked with three different schools this year.

We worked with South Gallia, Logan High School, and Meigs High School.

And we work with the students to create documentaries that tell their stories, not what we would like them to talk about, but whatever stories they thought were interesting and important to tell the region, to tell the state, and to tell their friends and their peers as well.

It was an exciting time.

We started this project in 2020.

You may remember 2020 was a little weird.

- A little bit.

- Things got a little strange, but we made it through.

And so we worked with these students over a series of Zoom calls, and, you know, teaching them about how to write, and how to make films, and to really tell their stories.

And it was a wonderful experience.

- That was true.

And we showed them a POV documentary film called "Portraits and Dreams".

That film helped the students think about Appalachian stigma, and cultural pride, and the role media plays in telling their own story.

- [Evan] That's right.

And the film really helped the communities identify their Appalachian culture and recognize that they are Appalachians.

You know, here in Southern Ohio, we may not think of ourselves as Appalachia, but we absolutely are, - Absolutely.

- we're rural Appalachians.

And the students, what we did is we had a panel discussion with local community leaders.

We all watched the film and the community leaders came into the panel discussions to talk with the students about what makes their communities special.

- [Cheri] During this program, we're gonna show you some of the work produced by the students at Meigs High School.

- That's right.

And I'm kinda excited about this one because Meigs High School is my alma mater.

- No.

- Yeah.

Who knew, who would have thought?

Did you know that?

I've never told anyone that.

- No.

- But yeah, this is the films that we- a few of the selected films from Meigs High School.

This was a wonderful group to work with.

We worked with Mrs. Metts, honors English class, which you may not think of English class as being a documentary storytelling class, but these kids were incredible.

They knew how to write, they understood the concept of storytelling and they really bought in to what we were trying to do.

So we're gonna start off with a film by Annika McKinney, who actually won first place in our film festival.

Her film is called "The I in Independence."

Now, Annika, she was an incredible student, she's brilliant.

And her whole film is about the subject of being independent in Appalachia, because you have to be independent here, and you have to do things on your own sometimes.

So let's take a look at Annika's film.

- [Annika] Welcome to my home.

What many people would call back of Rutland.

We're 20 minutes from the nearest gas station, 35 minutes from the nearest Walmart.

And not a lot goes on out here, but people definitely keep themselves entertained.

(upbeat music) (laughing) - [Annika] Growing up, I always preferred spending time inside rather than going outside.

I found it so much more interesting to read a book or draw a picture, than to play hide and seek or ride bikes.

Compared to everyone around me, I was the odd one out.

When you live in such a beautiful place, full of wide open fields to play in and trees to climb, why would one want to stay inside?

The landscape is so appealing, to a child, this place is a wonderland.

So much room to play in and endless places to explore.

The Appalachian foothills are just so mesmerizing.

How could one even fathom the thought of not taking advantage of your time spent there?

This is where the phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover" comes into play.

Since I've learned to talk and identify letters, I've always been buried in a book.

Ever since I learned to use a computer, I was researching the most random topics, from the lives of actors and actresses, to life on Mars.

My mind has always been all over the place.

I wanted to know anything and everything.

I would definitely say that one of my strongest traits is curiosity.

Once I feel any sense of being intrigued, I do everything in my power to find out everything about that certain topic.

I've always been especially intrigued by the mind and how it works, more specifically children's minds.

I love watching what captures the minds of children.

Why did children play with certain toys?

Why did children play in certain places?

This curiosity allows me to look back on my own childhood and upbringing.

Why did I grow up to be the way that I am?

Due to keeping myself distanced as a child, I've grown up to be quite independent.

I prefer to do things on my own.

When you look around at different households in the area, you find different kinds of independence in different types of people.

There are people who farmers, gamers, even the single moms, independence is everywhere, and it's very important.

What does independence mean to you?

- It means having to do things on your own because you don't have the resources to help you out or other people to help you out.

- Do you value your independence?

- I do very much.

- Why?

- Because I've had to be independent for the past couple years, and take care of my kids on my own, also while maintaining a full-time job and a part time job.

- Do you think that having independence is an important attribute for living in Appalachia?

- Yes, because we don't have access to a lot of resources, and there are not a lot of things where we are.

So you have to have that independence.

- [Annika] Independence is important to have no matter where you are from, not just for the aspect of enjoying alone time, or to be able to do things on your own, but to be able to have the ability to do things on your own.

It's important to be able to have a grasp on your life, whether it be what you want to do, where you want to live, or what kind of family you plan to have, if you plan to start one.

Independence is key to living.

In Appalachia, we don't have big cities, or huge shopping malls, or famous people walking past us on the sidewalk every day.

In Appalachia, we have ourselves.

We grew up learning from our neighbors and become independent adults, passing on the same skills to future generations.

It's important to have a sense of individuality in this area.

Every person you pass on the street is someone new.

If people from the outside are looking, maybe look a little harder, pay a little more attention-to-detail.

We're not just a bunch of river rats with Southern accents.

There's a new person with new personality around every corner.

We're all individualists, and that adds loads of character to Appalachia.

- [Cheri] So now we're gonna talk about how this film came to life.

Evan, tell me a little bit about how Annika came up with this idea for this film.

- Well, Annika, as you may have gathered from that film, was a very independent young lady.

And it really showed because she was remote for most of the school year.

So we only worked over Zoom with her, and it would be interesting because I would ask her, "How are things coming?"

"Oh, it's good."

And I didn't see anything, and I didn't know where she was.

But when it became time to turn everything in, it was incredible.

And I'm so excited- I was so excited to see how she used that independence, the theme of her film, on her own.

I did not help with this film very much at all.

I gave her some brief guidelines, you know, a few workshops on editing, things like that.

And that really holds true for all the students.

These are projects that they did on their own with minimal guidance and minimal help.

And so Annika being able to do that in the middle of a global pandemic, you know, learning how to shoot video, learning how to edit is just- it was incredible experience.

- Were you surprised at all, that some of the themes like Annika's, weren't about COVID.

And you know, I thought we were gonna get 20 films about COVID, but that's not what we got.

- I think we only got one film out of all of them, 15 films out about COVID, which was fine.

I was so excited to see that because by the time we started working on this project, it was September, they had other things to talk about.

And that's what we really wanted to focus on was community stories, stories about Appalachian pride, culture, what makes us unique.

And so, yeah, I was a little surprised.

I expected a lot of COVID films, but I was glad to not get them.

- And Annika, actually, we had some industry professionals judge these, and she got some really high marks.

- She absolutely did, you know, for her writing, especially.

And I think that shows for Mrs. Metts' English class, and the English faculty at Meigs High School, and Meigs' local school districts, have obviously done an incredible job.

And that was what we really focused on.

You know, since we were remote with trying to teach the students how to edit and shoot, we really decided to focus more on story, and on writing.

And on getting your ideas across to other people who may not be familiar with the things that you're going through.

And so I think she did a phenomenal job, and their writing, especially as you'll see in all of the films, the writing was very- it's authentic.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's really who she is.

And it's really who all these students are.

- Well, you segued very nicely into the next one.

So tell us about our next film.

- Yeah, so the next film we're gonna watch is "From Alaska to Ohio With Love" by Nicholas McConnell.

This is an interesting story.

Nick's family is originally from Meigs County.

However, he grew up in Alaska.

So let's take a look at Nick McConnell's film, "From Alaska to Ohio With Love".

(acoustic guitar) - [Nick] They say the richest place is the graveyard.

But in Appalachia, the richest place is with families.

I was born and raised in Alaska, but my roots run deeper.

Both of my parents were raised in Appalachia, graduated from both local high Schools and the local university.

My great-grandfather settled on a piece of land in Southeastern Ohio.

His son, my grandfather, built the log cabin house and has lived there ever since.

(acoustic guitar) But I grew up in Alaska knowing I was different from everyone else.

Not because of athleticism, wealth, or work ethic.

It was because of my heart.

I have many friends from Alaska, some of my best friends still live there, but the people are different.

Alaskans, by nature, are very independent.

Everything they have comes from their own work, and everyone else is expected to do the same.

Appalachians have a community instead.

Appalachia is a community, a community who cares and works for one another.

If you're stuck in a ditch, you can count on someone stopping to pull you out.

If a line breaks, you can count on someone helping you dig it up.

As a kid, I remember being uncomfortable when someone said I did something nice.

"Thanks, that was so nice of you."

I always thought, "What?

How is that nice?

That's normal."

Until we moved, I never realized that wasn't normal.

The moment it slapped me in the face was when I read Bob Fox's "Moving Out, Finding Home".

(acoustic guitar) It finally hit me.

That was what made me different.

No matter where I was raised, no matter who I was around, I was still Appalachian.

And that was something no one could take away from me.

That was something deeper than birthplaces in childhoods, deeper than friends in school.

Maybe even deeper than genetics.

I looked around and noticed I wasn't the only one this way.

My mom and dad also stood out.

20 years of living in Alaska could only hide the roots.

They never really left Appalachia.

My father, the 16th of his 17 brothers and sisters, moved from Appalachia in his 20s.

For 20 years, he's still greeted people with, "Howdy, how are you?"

If I looked hard enough, I could still see him tip his hat in passing, even though he never wore one.

His father worked in the coal mines as did his father's father.

They kept a coal furnace in the basement and grew up using gas-stripped stones.

They swung on grape vines down at the creek.

They ran paper routes on bicycles, and packed the shotgun in the passenger seat of their trucks to go squirrel hunting after school.

In some ways, I feel as if they're the last generation of true Americans.

In some ways, they were.

(acoustic guitar) The people I grew up with never jumped in a lake in summertime.

We never swung on grapevines.

Never went hunting after school.

Never walked over that hill, just to see that side of the hill.

Never watched a football game from a tailgate in Fall.

Instead, my generation got smartphones, laptops, consoles, and computers.

But somewhere along the way, we forgot the virtual world we lived in, came with a price.

It cost us real life.

Somewhere between social media, likes, and trends, we forgot about each other.

We forgot about real life.

We forgot about living.

Ever had a moment of pure exhilaration?

Every breath is colder than ice, every touch electric, sounds are gunshots.

Every smell is vivid as if it was right before you, so strong, you can taste it.

That is living.

That is real.

that is what life is supposed to be.

Why isn't it?

I can't even answer that, not fully at least.

But what I can tell you is Appalachia comes close to that.

Living rooms are lived in.

People understand each other.

That's not understanding or knowing the meaning behind someone's actions or words.

That's understanding.

Standing under someone to help them, support them.

That understanding.

That's loving your neighbor.

That's what we are supposed to be, who we were meant to be.

So why aren't we?

What's stopping us?

What's stopping you?

That's love.

That is why Appalachia is so rich.

That is why I love Appalachia.

That's why I'm proud to be from Appalachia.

That is why the richest place in Appalachia is with the families.

Because for all the dreams, lost opportunities, and memories buried in the grave, it lacks one thing: Love.

Thank you.

- [Cheri] So now let's talk a little bit about this.

So Alaska, Meigs County, we alluded to it leading in, they're a little different.

What did Nick learn about himself through this project?

- I think Nick- I don't wanna speak for Nick, but I think his film does a great job of doing that.

But I think he discovered, as I mentioned earlier, his roots, who he was, where he comes from, and why he may have felt the things that he has growing up.

You know, being raised by parents who were from Meigs County originally obviously impacted him growing up.

And then when he moved back here- and through this project, he was able to kind of uncover some of that, and discover what makes it unique.

You know, Alaska is a very rural community.

A lot of times people think that rural communities were fairly homogenous and monolithic, and that's not the case.

We're very different.

And I think that was what was very fascinating about Nick's film was to show that while some people may think rural people in any part of the country are all the same, there are very strong differences in our little pockets around the country.

- And did he come up with this idea on his own?

Or how did that idea come about?

- Absolutely, this was all on his own, and really all of these films were the students' ideas.

My guidelines to them were make a film about what you think other people should know about you, your community, your culture, and they ran with it.

And so, yeah, he did come up with this on his own, and I didn't know how it was gonna turn out.

I think he absolutely knocked it out of the park .

And I also want to congratulate Nick.

Nick has now been accepted into the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to go to their officer training school there.

And you know, Meigs County has a very long history of incredible military leaders, from Commander William Outerbridge, who fired the first shot of World War II, to General James Hardinger, who was the first Commander of Space.

- Wow.

- That's the best title ever.

- That is, that's fantastic.

- If we can get that for me, if I could be the next Commander of Space at WOUB, that'd be great.

- Awesome.

- So hopefully Nick will follow in their footsteps, and I can't wait to see what he does.

- Awesome.

Well, I don't know how to follow that up, but I'm sure you have the next project.

- I do, we're gonna take a look at Tresiliana Smith's film, "Harvesting Hope".

This film discovers and takes a look at some of the different ways that people are involved in the community in Meigs County.

The ways that people help, whether that be working at food banks, or community gardens, and things like that, or farmer's markets.

And she really uncovers and dives deep to look at how people are working to help make their communities a better place.

So now let's take a look at Tres's film, "Harvesting hope".

(soft piano music) - As a child, the town we live in is huge and bright.

It is our whole world.

But as I grew up, the light around my town started to slowly dim.

All the bright places were now dark.

I saw the old ruined houses, businesses going out of business.

People struggling to get by.

That, for me, made me look at my town as a place I wanted to leave and never return.

Nothing good could come from Meigs County was how I thought for a very long time.

I believe this until the past Summer of 2020.

I started volunteering at the Pomeroy Farmer's Market on Saturdays.

I was blown away by how much the farmer's market does.

They give Veterans $10 vouchers.

They donate fresh produce for local Kitchens, and they are getting grants and sponsors to help make the county more green.

They also told me about, and showed me, some hidden gems in my hometown that I and others never knew about.

Through the farmer's market, the town of Pomeroy has gotten a grant to help fund a local orchard where people can come and pick fresh fruit, which is already built and just waiting for the trees to produce.

Another hidden gem I learned about was the community garden.

Market Manager Stephanie Rice has been given funds and permission to create a space where businesses and people can receive fresh produce.

Out of all the hidden gems in the county, the most impressive to me is the Mulberry Kitchen.

Here they make homemade meals for people.

You can pay $3, but if you aren't able to, that's fine.

Everyone who comes gets to eat.

When I went there, I learned that the ladies and gentlemen who volunteer there are genuine and very caring individuals.

All they want to do is cook for people, and they have a fun time doing it.

Peggy Crane is now the manager over the Kitchen.

Since she took this role, their sales have tripled, and now they can help even more people with the Kitchen.

- [Tresiliana] How long and have you been volunteering here?

- I've been volunteering here for about two years.

I started managing the Kitchen in June.

- Okay.

What made you want to start helping here and...?

- Well, I- when I worked at Carlton school with adults, with (indistinct), and we came down here and helped in the Kitchen, started volunteering from there.

And then I just felt like it was a worthy cause.

And I love to cook.

I'm a creative person, so cooking is another art.

- [Tresiliana] The people here truly love doing this and putting smiles on people's faces who come to eat.

During Christmas, Peggy, Stephanie, and Stephanie's daughters made 200 Christmas cookies for the Kitchen's annual Christmas dinner.

- [Tresiliana] When did you start volunteering here?

- When did I start?

I don't know.

When did I start volunteering here?

- [Female Speaker] You know, I think we've been volunteering for about four years.

- Yeah.

- [Female Speaker] I said two, about four.

- Yeah.

- [Tresiliana] What made you, like, find out about the Kitchen?

- Well, Ms. Alice, she went to her church with this older lady, and she was here every day the Kitchen was open.

And Peggy worked for Carlton at the time.

- [Female Speaker] For Meigs Industries.

- And she would bring the Carlton adults here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So we kind of got involved.

First we were just coming to eat, and hang out with the Carlton adults.

We'd make cards and take those to Overbrook once a month.

And it was just a good experience for the girls.

And then we just kind of went from that to volunteering here.

- I believe with my whole heart, that everyone should know about all the wonderful things The Mulberry Kitchen does.

Learning and discovering these hidden gems of my town, I now look at it with fresh, hopeful eyes.

Through this, I learn not everything has to stay the way it is.

Small towns can improve and grow.

They just don't have to die and be forgotten.

I now have a new-found hope in my community.

- So Evan, how did Tres come up with this idea for this film?

- You know, it's fascinating because when we first started this project, she wasn't sure where she wanted to go with this.

And she talked about doing a story on the farmer's market, which would have been wonderful, and it isn't included in her film.

But then she started to think more and more about how many other organizations are there to help people in our communities.

And I think what was fascinating is how she learned, and gained pride in her community, by the way that people around here help each other.

And she found all these other incredible places that she could volunteer, and how volunteering helped her understand her community better.

And so she kept adding parts to it.

At first it was gonna be a film about the farmer's market, and then she added in The Mulberry Community Center and places like that.

So I was glad to see her keep expanding it as it went on.

And she could have done that for an hour-long film with all the things that are going on.

So I think she did a wonderful job.

- Well, we talked about earlier, you know, we had this discussion with community leaders and the students in the class.

And one of the things that kept coming up from those community leaders and the students, was just how much this culture of helping each other was really a part of what Appalachia was.

And so this film seems to really speak to that.

- It absolutely does.

And really all the films do throughout the whole series, if you pay special attention, to how we are independent, but we have our family roots, from Nick's film.

We learned independence from Annika.

And we also learned about how we help each other through Tres's film.

And that theme is consistent throughout most of the films and it's consistent through our daily lives.

And I think that's something that we should be proud of.

You know, we don't have everything that a lot of other places around the country might have, but we have each other.

And it's great to see these high school students recognizing that and understanding the importance of that, and how much that plays into making our community a better place for everyone.

- And we also talked to the students a lot about using media to tell their own story in a positive way, 'cause we know that the Appalachian story isn't always told positively on the national level.

- You're exactly right.

You know, this is one of the things that frustrates me the most, is there are very few, if any, positive role models of Appalachian individuals for our kids or for anyone.

I'm trying to think of a national media personality, or a character in a major sit-com or anything like that, that has a rural accent, that may live in a rural place, but it's not a character of themself.

They don't really exist.

And so it's important for us to take that story over, and for these students to start taking that story on them on themselves to tell that story.

Because no one else is gonna do it for us.

And if we let other people tell our stories, they're not gonna get it right, frankly.

And so I don't think you can get anything more authentic than high school students talking about who they are.

- [Cheri] And WOUB is now getting ready to do this project again for next school year.

We're really excited about it.

We're bringing two new high schools in, Alexander and Wellston.

And we're also adding and expanding by including a cross-cultural exchange component with high school students in Cincinnati.

- I am so excited for this because A, we're adding more Appalachian Ohio students to keep expanding this project throughout the schools in our local area.

But then hopefully their plan is to have a chance to have these students here in Southern Ohio, work with students in Southwest Ohio, in urban Cincinnati, and find issues to make a film about that both communities may face.

And how they challenge- or how those challenges affect them, how they may take on those challenges, and how they can work together.

So I'm excited to see what comes out of this project next year.

- And learning about each other, right?

- Exactly.

And we're gonna learn about ourselves first, and then learn about each other together afterwards.

I can't think of anything more exciting for this type of project than to have that cross-cultural exchange and to see what comes out of it.

I don't know what's gonna come out of it, but I think it's gonna be good.

- It's gonna be great.

We didn't know what was gonna come out of this year- - Nope.

- and look at what happened.

- Exactly.

- It was awesome.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

To learn more about this project and all of the educational programming and services offered by WOUB, please visit our website, WOUB.org.

Thanks for joining us.