"Remembering No. 9: Stories of the Farmington Mine Disaster"

The tradition of storytelling runs deep in the mountains of Appalachia, and the stories of the people who lived through the dark days of the 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster serve as the basis of the final production of the Fairmont State University Masquers' season.

"Remembering No. 9: Stories from the Farmington Mine Disaster," a devised performance piece, is based on a series of interviews collected by FSU students Celi Oliveto, an Oral Communication Secondary Education major from Fairmont; Samantha Huffman, an Oral Communication Secondary Education major from Fairmont; and Jason Young, a Theatre major from Fairmont.

The project is funded by the FSU Undergraduate Research Program. Performances will be presented May 1 and 2 and 7 through 9 at 7:30 p.m. and May 3 at 2 p.m. in Room 314 of Wallman Hall. Tickets are $5 for general admission and $4 for students with ID. For tickets, call the Box Office at (304) 367-4240. Sign language interpreting services will be provided for the May 8 show.

In the fall of 2007, the student researchers from the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts and their mentor, Dr. Francene Kirk, met with oral historians, Michael and Carrie Nobel Kline of Elkins. The Klines operate Talking Across the Lines, a folklife documentary and projection consulting firm in Elkins. The Klines instructed the researchers in interviewing techniques and provided them with models of documentary style research performance, including an audio story about the Farmington Mine explosion the Klines produced for West Virginia Public Radio.

Armed with information and digital recorders, the student researchers then talked with wives, children and friends of the victims and survivors of the Farmington explosion. Seventy-eight people died in the explosion at the Consol No. 9 mine in Marion County on Nov. 20, 1968. Among the interviewees was Rev. Richard Bowyer, the long-time director of the Wesley Foundation House at Fairmont State, spent seven days comforting families and during those dark days in 1968. The transcripts of his and others interviews will be used to create the projection. 

In August 2008, Huffman, Oliveto and Kirk attended the American Alliance for Theatre Education Conference in Atlanta where the student researchers presented a workshop on the Farmington Project. While there, they attended a workshop about museum theatre presented by Greg Hardison from the Kentucky Historical Society. On Feb. 2, 2009, Hardison came to FSU to assist the students in creating a historically accurate script for the performance.

Over the course of the next two months, the researchers worked with other theatre students and the theatre faculty to finalize the performance. It will include audio and video clips as well as photographs, many of which were provided by the people who were interviewed. Photographer Bob Campione is allowing the students to use his photos of the mine disaster for their production.

Bob Campione was a senior at Fairmont State College and freelance photographer when he received a phone call that November morning in 1968. He went to Farmington along with Bill Evans the editor of the Fairmont Times. For the next two weeks, they spent most of their time in Farmington covering one of the most devastating events to occur in Marion County's history and one that would change the safety standards for the mining industry.

Campione was born and raised in Fairmont attending East Fairmont High School and Fairmont State College. After graduating from FSC he taught elementary school in Marion County for two years before going in business in Fairmont. Two of his children are now teachers, son BJ in Monongalia County and daughter Angela in the Atlanta, Ga., area.

Campione now lives in Morgantown with his wife Andrea and their two children. His son Ryan is a senior at University High School; he is student body president and plans on attending West Virginia University to study engineering. Krista, his daughter, a junior, also attends University High School and plans on attending college majoring in photo journalism. She has attended the Governors' School of Arts and will attend the Governors' Honors Academy this summer for digital photography.

Campione currently works at WVU where he is presently involved with a new program to improve the Greek housing and bring it under the University's housing guidelines. Outside of work, he spends time working on and riding motorcycles. Additionally, several years ago he started flying and is now a Certified Flight Instructor. He is also a goldsmith and enjoys designing, repairing, and working with gems.   

The play will be entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in fall 2009. The production will be reworked in the fall and performed again.

The Undergraduate Research Program began at Fairmont State in 2005. It was designed to give students an opportunity to independently further their education with the guidance of a faculty mentor. At the conclusion of the project, the transcripts of the interviews will be housed in the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at FSU.

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Excerpts from the production are included below:

"I must have been in the eighth grade and I woke up, I lived in Homewood, and I remember looking out and seeing a lot of dark smoke in the sky. A lot of dark clouds. And a friend of mine, he lived across the road in an apartment like, and I remember seeing him and his parents getting in the car that day and leaving. And then when I got up that morning I started hearing talk that there had been an explosion at the mine."

"My father had been called out that morning. At that time he worked as a mechanic. He worked outside so we always felt much safer. I think he was working on one of the fans, and if you are familiar with the engine system the fans pull in good air and get the bad air out. My father talked about when the mine explosion occurred he was walking away from the fan. He was probably fifty or one hundred yards away when it exploded. Flames came out through the fan and he was knocked down. I don't think my father was ever quite the same."  

 "Just every day they were hopeful that they would still find someone."

"He kept hearing it over and over and over and over again. Reliving it... It must have been very sad to relive something like that that's so painful. That's when he would cry."

 "Those women... their lives were changed so drastically and they were women who didn't work; they worked at home and to have their lives just turned upside down... to raise children. That's where our strength comes. That's where strength comes out and people are amazing with the things that they can do. Not a good way to find out how strong you are, but that's why I say that a lot of times the worst of times brings out the best in people, the kindness of other people, the caring of other people."