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Residents of this
Kentucky town
seek a post-coal
revival. Among
them are former
miner turned
nonprofit worker
Scott Shoupe
(cen t er r ow, le f t)
and entrepreneur
Joey McKenney
(bottom row,
center).(MACED). “The homes
are falling down
because they’ve been
vacant for so long,”
he says. “There are no
jobs here.”
Perry County, home
to Hazard, now has
about 29,000 people,
down from 50,000 in
the early 1950s. And
some 27.4% of the
population lives below
the poverty line, far
more than the na-
tional average. Peter
Hille, president of the
MACED, says 2012
was a tipping point,
when many coal-
mining jobs in Eastern
Kentucky evaporated
as natural gas prices
fell below those of
coal. Employment in
the sector fell by half“almost overnight ,”
he says. Unemploy-
ment in the broader
region has stood at
about 10% for years.
These days, the top
employers include a
group of regional hos-
pitals, a rehab center,
a UPS sorting facility,
and a call center. For
Shoupe, a wage of
$16 to $20 an hour
now qualifies as good
money—“but it’s still
not like making coal-
mining money,” he
says, when he earned
almost twice that.
The town faces an
uphill battle in diversi-
fying its economy. But
residents are trying.
Hazard entrepre-
neur Joey McKenney
founded AppalachianApparel Co. in 2017,
designing and making
products himself.
He recently opened
a store in downtown
Hazard, hoping to be
the spark that revital-
izes a once-vibrant
city center.
McKenney says
he’s been told that he
wouldn’t be success-
ful because the coal
industry is fading. His
response? “There
are people here who
refuse to give up.”
—P.W.WHEN SCOTT SHOUPE
was growing up in
Hazard, Ky., the play-
grounds and streets
were teeming with
people, and the town
had country clubs and
golf courses.
But now his home-
town, a burg of 5,000
people some 120
miles southeast of
Lexington in the heart
of Kentucky’s Coal
Country, is a shadow
of itself. “Today,
there’s no downtown
business,” says
Shoupe, a fourth-
generation coal miner
who now works at
the local economic
development agency,
Mountain Association
for Community Eco-
nomic Development