Kevin Dunn, who has worked at Mid-South for 7 years, after 11 years at a textile plant in London, a town 22 miles away, considers himself lucky. It was at Mid-South that President Clinton stopped on his poverty tour last year of the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky to prove his point that companies can park themselves anywhere and do well. Folks at Mid-South say it was a big thrill to have the president walk through the plant, even though many workers are Republicans through and through. Della Dell, a quality control supervisor who has been at Mid-South for 16 years, said she was excited to meet the president, even though she is a Republican. There is a lot of that kind of talk in Eastern Kentucky.
People are weary of the image of Appalachian hillbillies in miners' hats and rope belts.
Time and again they said it would be wrong to take pictures or interview the rural poor without including the rest of the people. As poor as the region is nearly 35 percent of the people in Jackson County, which includes Annville, live below the poverty line, as do 30 percent of those in Perry County, where the president addressed a rally in Hazard the emphasis is on telling the world that encouraging private investment is the way to go. This is God's country. From Annville to Hazard, people grow patches of tobacco in the backyard and post the Ten Commandments on their lawns. People time and again said they were blessed to live in a place as beautiful as Kentucky, where the mountains are green and lush and the trees look as old as time.