BY PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — Madison Mooney and Karen Rignall were the guest speakers at last week’s Kiwanis meeting in Inez. Mooney and Rignall represented the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN) and presented an update on the nonprofit’s Stories of Place project in Martin County.
Stories of Place, a LiKEN storytelling project, highlights the significance of specific locations in shaping community life throughout Central Appalachia.
“Stories of a Place is a project by and for Martin Countians,” said Mooney. “It’s a place where Martin Countians can tell their story whether it’s through oral history, art or music.”
The pair of LiKENeers were prompted to speak with the Martin County Kiwanis Club by the start of a new sub-project: The Martin County Family Cemeteries Project.
The project aims to ensure that every grave in Martin County is documented “no matter how large or small.” LiKEN will work with the Property Value Administrator to create an up-to-date map of all graves and cemeteries in the county.
“There are upwards of 100-120 cemeteries that are in the property records,” said Rignall. “What we’ve determined is there are hundreds more family gravesites…”
Rignall and Mooney explained that they hope to get the community’s help locating unmarked and undocumented graves in the county by sharing photos and locations with LiKEN.
Since 2018, the Martin County Stories project has been spearheaded by Rignall, a professor at the University of Kentucky who studies community and leadership development. The project began as a collaboration with Martin County High School, involving high school students in the “story-catching” process.
In recent years, the Stories of Place project has organized open mic storytelling events at the Collier Center and documented oral histories privately and in small groups throughout the county, aiming to build up the available knowledge of Martin County’s history.
Mooney fondly recalled a story from a recent event at the Martin County Senior Citizen Center, in which a woman who had been silent up to that point recognized a photo of her granddaughter from a Mountain Citizen archive that she thought had been completely lost.
“It was her granddaughter riding a lawnmower to prom,” said Mooney.
The woman had forgotten sending the photo into the Mountain Citizen and seeing it brought the memories rushing back so quickly she couldn’t help but get involved in the conversation, sharing her stories with her friends and community.
“That’s what we want to do,” said Mooney. “Inspire people to tell their story. The good, the bad and everything in between.”
LiKEN, a Lexington-based sustainability-focused nonprofit, builds and strengthens collaborative networks and partnerships that focus on knowledge exchange and policy-related initiatives that improve quality of life for citizens, building more self-sufficient communities across the world.
Mooney has been a key figure in LiKEN projects in Martin County involving land, water, solar and oral history projects.
In collaboration with the Martin County Concerned Citizens and the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, LiKEN’s Water Collaboratory project is aimed at improving water quality and access in Martin and Harlan counties while finding solutions for places around the world with similar infrastructure issues.