Airport Road

BY GARY WAYNE COX

As you can tell by reading these articles, I’m immensely proud of this airport. Managing Big Sandy Regional Airport is more than just a job for me. I consider it a duty to be an ambassador for Eastern Kentucky, especially the four counties that own this facility. When people land here for the first time, I want them to have a positive image of our region. That’s why I keep the grass cut, the terminal building and bathrooms clean, and landscaping as neat as I’m able to maintain. I even like to plant wildflowers around the road leading to the building. Sometimes the flowers will do well and provide a classy touch to the place.

I’m also pretty particular about the 3 miles of highway leading to the airport; Airport Road. The airport doesn’t own the road, but it does have our name on it, so I want it to look good too. It’s a little selfish to think this way, but I consider the runway the welcome mat to Eastern Kentucky, the airport grounds the home and Airport Road the driveway leading to our beautiful area.

In reality, Airport Road has its own identity. Many people come to enjoy Airport Road who don’t care about the airport at the end of it.

The mountain views, the elk and deer grazing in the fields, the beautiful sunsets and now the apple orchard make Airport Road a tourist attraction. I have talked to many people who have been staying in the lodge and campgrounds at Jenny Wiley State Park who come here for the chance to see elk.

It’s not unusual to see people with out-of-state license plates taking pictures and many locals standing beside the road when the elk are out. It’s like being in the Smoky Mountains when a bear is spotted. Over the years, I have noticed how many elderly people like to take evening drives to check out the scenery. Sometimes I will see the same cars several evenings a week.

Another reason Airport Road is popular is the views of the sky. Most people in our area live in the valleys between our steep, short hills. You just can’t see too much sky from that vantage point, but here on this reclaimed surface mine you can see for miles and miles. It’s a different view.

That’s why it’s especially important to keep Airport Road neat and attractive. Have you ever noticed how nicely the grass is cut along the edges of the road? You don’t see much garbage either, do you? It’s kept that way because of a team effort along the road to keep it neat.

When the federal prison opened about 20 years ago, they started keeping all the grass neatly cut along the highway, on both sides of the road, from Route 3 to the industrial park entrance. That’s about a mile. Booth Energy, seeing how neat that looked, started cutting the grass from the industrial part all the way to their mine entrance. That’s about a mile and three-fourths. I would cut the grass from the mine entrance to the airport’s regularly maintained areas. That kept Airport Road maintained the entire way. No one ever coordinated the grass cutting. It was just good neighbors along the road seeing the need and getting it done.

When the mine closed a few years back it left the biggest section in the middle without anyone to keep it maintained. I watched the grass grow for about a month and couldn’t take it anymore. I keep it cut now from the airport to the industrial park as payback for all those years that they kept it cut.

I do have a complaint though. Keeping the grass cut takes about three hours. Picking up the trash that some people throw out takes about an hour more. I will never understand how some people will drive to Airport Road to enjoy the beauty, to look at the wildlife, and then try to ruin what they are coming to see by turning the area into their personal garbage dump. I feel the same way about the side-by-side riders who enjoy the absolutely gorgeous beauty of our hollows and mountains and then toss their litter along the very place they come to enjoy.

I have come up with a way to pick up the trash more efficiently. Using my side-by-side and one of those “reachers,” I can pick up most of the litter without having to get out every time I see a beer can. I keep a small trash can beside me on the front floorboard, and I can cover the mile and three-fourths in about an hour. It’s just frustrating knowing that most of the litter I’m picking up is not there because it accidentally blew out of a truck bed. It is there because someone has no pride in their community and doesn’t have the self-respect to do better.

A few years back, the Kentucky Department of Education held a conference in Paintsville. Four women attending that conference, from Louisville, came to Cloud 9 Café to eat one afternoon and saw a herd of elk grazing in one of the fields. One of the women and her husband had recently been to Colorado on vacation and had seen a lot of elk there, and she was amazed that elk were here in Eastern Kentucky. She asked my daughter Lauren many questions about the elk restoration project. Lauren told her I could answer her questions better than she could, and the ladies came to the airport after eating.

She was so excited about finding this place, Airport Road. She said she just couldn’t get over how green and pretty the top of this mountain was and the abundance of wildlife. I showed the ladies the pictures I had taken of the elk around the airport and a set of elk antlers. I shared some of the information I had learned by listening to the talks during the Jenny Wiley State Park’s elk tours. I told them that a full-grown elk would eat about 40 pounds of grass per day and that these reclaimed surface mines were perfect for the elk restoration project by the Kentucky Department of Wildlife and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

The lady had a stunned look on her face, and she said, “Sir, this isn’t a surface mine. Grass won’t grow on a surface mine. There is no way you can convince me we are standing on a reclaimed surface mine.”

I said, “Look out there in the distance. All you can see are the tops of those mountains. Mother Nature left us some beautiful mountains here in Eastern Kentucky. She never left us much level land, but the coal companies did. If you don’t believe grass will grow on a reclaimed surface mine, when you get done with your conference, you come back up to the airport. You see that orange Kubota tractor? I’ll put you on that for a couple of hours and I’m sure you will change your mind.”

(Gary Wayne Cox is airport manager of Big Sandy Regional Airport, owned by Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin and Martin counties.)