Sunday Edition | Issue #7 | March 15, 2026

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🚂 WELCOME ABOARD
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New faces.

Lot of 'em.

Pull up a chair.

For those who just climbed aboard, here's the short version: The Wayne Train started the way most things start around here — out of boredom and stubbornness. I retired. Then retired again. Possibly a third time. At some point I stopped counting and started typing.

What you've stumbled into is a newsletter with ambitions above its raisin'.

The goal is to become something that feels like an Appalachia-centric Sunday paper.

You remember Sunday papers. The real ones. Fat as a phone book. Ink that came off on your fingers. You could spend an hour with the thing easy, maybe two, spread across the kitchen table with a cup of coffee going cold beside you. Sports. Coupons. A crossword you'd never finish. Some story about a county fair that somehow held your attention for six full pages.

That feeling. That's what I'm chasing.

Whether I catch it or not is still being negotiated.

But we're moving.

Thanks for reading.

Let’s get rolling.

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🚂 FRONT PORCH ESSAY BY WAYNE
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I was eleven years old in 1968 when a transistor radio broke my heart for the first time.

Not the last.

Not by a long shot.

There I was, buried under bunk bed covers like a fugitive, that little radio pressed against my ear with the volume set on 2 — barely a whisper — because God forbid my parents discovered I was awake on a school night. And I lay there listening to my heroes: Dan Issel. Mike Pratt. Phil Argento. The great and terrible Adolph Rupp. The entire Big Blue machine of the University of Kentucky.

Blowing an Elite Eight game they had no business losing.

I didn't know it then, but that night was less a heartbreak and more an orientation. A welcome to the program, son. Here's your cross. Carry it.

Try explaining Big Blue Madness to someone who wasn't born a Kentuckian.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

You can't. It's like trying to explain why Ale-8 tastes better in a green glass bottle. Either you know, or you don't, and if you don't, God bless you, you had a deprived childhood.

I was born into this faith. I was later anointed a full Kentucky Colonel by Gov. Wallace G. Wilkinson — may he rest in peace — which means I have the certificate, the seal, and absolutely zero military authority, which honestly suits me fine.

Except for those unfortunate souls dropped on their heads as infants — which left them genetically vulnerable to becoming Louisville Cardinals — the entire state bleeds Blue. Breeds Blue. Possibly Baptizes Blue. It’s conceivable that some preacher in Harlan County has been baptizing people in a creek while humming "My Old Kentucky Home," then checking their eyes to make sure they come up Wildcat before he lets them surface.

I could completely see that happening.

Kentucky is the winningest program in the history of college basketball.

That's not bragging. That's a fact. You can look it up.

More national championships than most programs have March runs. More legends than most states have counties. So you'd think, given that track record, Big Blue Nation might occasionally extend a little grace when the boys have a rough go of it.

Think 2008-09 train wreck under Billy Gillispie. Think 2020-21 under Calipari. Their first losing season in thirty years.

You'd think.

But no. No grace. No slack. No mercy.

Being a Kentucky basketball fan is nothing like being a Georgia football fan or some Boomer Sooner whose emotional investment peaks in September. This is different. This is a calling. A vocation. A clinically diagnosable condition that runs November through March, every single year, for more years than you've got fingers and toes to count.

Every loss lands like hot coffee splashing on a white shirt when you're already running late to work.

Over a lifetime, that's a lot of heartbreak.

Also a lot of ruined shirts.

Which brings us to this week.

March Madness begins. The annual tournament. Sixty-eight teams, one bracket, and approximately three hundred million Americans who will pretend to care about college basketball for exactly two weeks before going back to ignoring it.

This season has been, to put it charitably, a trial.

The Boys in Blue have spent most of it looking like they're running a basketball clinic — for the other team. So I fully expect them to rip the heart out of Big Blue Nation, drop it on the floor, and stomp on it the way Christian Laettner stomped on Aminu Timberlake in 1992.

(Note to self: The Laettner reference may be a bit much. The man lives rent-free in Kentucky heads and has for thirty years. That's enough.)

But here's the thing about Kentucky fans.

Hope does not die. It doesn't even get winded.

It just sits in the corner of the porch, rocking slow, watching the road, waiting on something that might be coming around the bend.

The Big Blue Nation has been waiting longer than it should have to.

But we're still here.

Radio pressed to our ear.

Volume set on 2.

Listening for something to believe in.

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📜 FEATURED STORY
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Fifty years ago this month, one of the deadliest coal mine disasters in modern Kentucky history unfolded deep in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. In a powerful retrospective for the Kentucky Lantern, reporter/photographers Bill Bishop and Earl Dotter look back at the tragic explosions at the Scotia Mine that killed 26 men in March 1976. 

A deadly blast on March 9 claimed the lives of 15 miners working underground. Two days later, while rescue crews and federal inspectors were attempting to assess the damage, a second explosion tore through the mine, killing 11 more men. 

The disaster stunned the nation and exposed serious failures in mine safety practices and oversight. 

In the coalfields of Appalachia, memories like this never really fade. They live in family stories, in quiet cemeteries on mountain hillsides, and in the lessons passed down from one generation of miners to the next. 

The tragedy at the Scotia Mine still echoes across eastern Kentucky because the men who died were fathers, sons, neighbors, and friends. Their loss shook the region and forced the nation to confront the dangers miners faced every day underground. 

This reporting by the Kentucky Lantern revisits that moment in history and reminds readers why the story of the 26 men lost in those explosions still matters today.

Click on the link below:

https://kentuckylantern.com/2026/03/05/avoidable-blasts-kill-26-men-in-a-kentucky-coal-mine-still-echo-today/?emci=b883198a-7c19-f111-a69a-000d3a1f0a97&emdi=e3972cf3-dd1a-f111-a69a-000d3a1f0a97&ceid=666321

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🗞 AROUND APPALACHIA
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With World Wildlife Day observed on March 3 and spring not far behind, a West Virginia University researcher is drawing attention to a living pharmacy hiding in plain sight across the Appalachian Mountains — and warning that the very plants that make those forests remarkable are in trouble. Click here to read the story

The U.S. boasts an impressive array of regional cuisines, including Southern desserts, and Tex-Mex and Southwestern-inspired dishes. But one region that doesn't get anywhere near the same amount of press is Appalachia. Click here to read the story

A 15-year-old girl writes a judge a letter about getting "butterflys" for her boyfriend. A judge signs the wrong form. A clerk catches it. The order gets revoked. So they drive to the next county over, flash the old paperwork, and get married anyway. And that's just one case. Since 2018, at least 16 illegal child marriages have been certified in Kentucky — judges who didn't read the law, clerks who followed bad orders, and a loophole wide enough to drive a pickup through. Kentucky Public Radio reports the story of how a law meant to protect children became a suggestion. Click here to read the story

You don't picture a seaport when somebody says Appalachia. You picture a porch. A hollow. Maybe a coal tipple. But tucked along the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Monongahela — and all the way up to Lake Erie — Appalachia moves more freight on the water than most people move in their entire lives. Pittsburgh's port ranks fifth in the nation. Huntington was literally built to load coal onto barges. Erie constructed warships for the War of 1812. And down in Marietta, Ohio, they park a barge in the river and hold a concert on it. This is the part of Appalachia nobody puts on a postcard — the one doing all the heavy lifting. Phillip J. Obermiller and Thomas E. Wagner report for Appalachian Places magazine. Click here to read the story

It was 80 degrees in Northeast Tennessee. In March. People had their windows down and their suspicions up. Turns out, they were right to be suspicious. Researchers at East Tennessee State University have been watching a pattern build, NOAA is forecasting a warmer-than-normal spring across Southern Appalachia, and more than half of Tennessee is already locked in drought. The rain that usually soaks into the ground and quietly refills the aquifers never quite showed up. Now wildfire season is lurking, the soil is cracked, and the state climatologist is choosing his words carefully. This isn't just a weird weekend. This is the new math. O.J. Early reports. Click here to read the story

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🍳 IN THE KITCHEN WITH KAY
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My father worked in the coal mines of eastern Kentucky. Part of his job was hauling coal in a big truck from the mines to homes and businesses whenever it was needed.

The heat in our home came from a coal stove. During the cold winter months, someone would bring a large bucket of coal into the house each day to keep the fire going. At night, a big block of coal would be placed in the stove so the fire would last until morning.

When I woke up to get ready for school, I hurried straight to the stove. I was the only girl with four brothers, so finding a spot by the heat wasn’t easy. We would warm one side of our bodies, then turn around and warm the other side.

Sometimes my parents tried to stretch the coal by burning wood during the day, saving the coal for the cold nights.

Now that I’m older, and maybe a little wiser, I can look back and see the sacrifices my parents made while raising five children. For that, I am deeply thankful.

This recipe is a true Appalachian classic—simple, hearty, and incredibly rich. It gets its name from its dark, "coal-like" appearance. The cherry pie filling tucked into the chocolate cake makes it exceptionally moist, and the fudge-like topping is the perfect finishing touch.

Enjoy the recipe for a Coal Miner’s Cake.

This is not my original recipe.

The Cake Base

The Fudge Topping

This cake is best served slightly warm with a cold glass of milk. If you want to skip the nuts, you can swap the pecans for extra chocolate chips or even a handful of shredded coconut for a different texture.

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🗺 KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS
Visit all 423 Appalachian counties, one week at a time
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Sit it down right here at the southern end of the Appalachians, where the ridgeline called Backbone Mountain cuts the county clean in half like a hog carcass on a fence post. That's St. Clair County. About 654 square miles of wooded hollows, Coosa River bottom land, and Birmingham bedroom communities trying to figure out if they're suburbs or small towns.

Population sits just north of 91,000, and it's part of the greater Birmingham metro area. Close enough to the city to commute. Far enough to keep chickens.

Established November 20, 1818 — making it, gloriously, a year older than the state of Alabama itself. Named for General Arthur St. Clair, who came over from Scotland, settled in Pennsylvania, and became a general in the Continental Army and president of the Continental Congress. So the county's named for a Scottish-American Founding Father. Feels about right for a place that can't quite decide what it is.

The dividing mountain is the whole story. Because Backbone Mountain bisects the county, residents in the south had a rough time getting to the courthouse in Ashville up north. So in 1907, Pell City became a second county seat. Two county seats. One county. It's the only county in Alabama with more than one county seat.

1. Two County Seats Not one. Two. Ashville handles the northern district. Pell City handles the south. It's the administrative equivalent of a double-wide. Practical. Unpretentious. Gets the job done.

2. Horse Pens 40 Atop Chandler Mountain, there's a nature park featuring unique sandstone rock formations. The legend says Native Americans used the natural rock walls to corral wild horses. Hence the name. Today hikers and bluegrass fans and people who just need to sit on a boulder and think show up regularly. It's a cathedral built by geology, admission charged at the gate.

3. Logan Martin Lake Seventeen thousand acres on the Coosa River, nickamed the Lake of a Thousand Coves, with 275 miles of shoreline. Bass fishing tournaments roll through here constantly. The Bassmaster Classic called it home in 1992, 1993, and 1997. That's not just a lake. That's a resume.

4. Natural Gas — A Lot of It In 2007, St. Clair County was found to have the nation's most extensive natural gas deposits. The county sitting on the biggest natural gas reserves in America. Nobody puts that on a bumper sticker, but they should.

5. One of Alabama's Fastest-Growing Counties Its proximity to Jefferson and Shelby Counties has made it attractive to economic and residential development. Birmingham's expanding waistline keeps swallowing the county whole, one subdivision at a time. The woods are still there. For now.

Tavern at The St. Clair — Pell City Pell City's premier place to eat and drink, serving exceptional dishes and cocktails. Steaks, seafood, pasta. Sunday brunch. Regulars rave about the eggplant arancini and a dining experience that doesn't rush you out the door. For a county that has two courthouses, it's only fair they have one proper sit-down spot. https://thestclairpellcity.com/

Pell City Steak House — Pell City Comforting flavors reminiscent of grandma's kitchen — old fashioned hamburger steak with grilled onions, country fried steak with creamy mashed potatoes, and what regulars call the best buttered dinner roll around. The kind of place where the booth vinyl is cracked and the sweet tea is cold and the ticket doesn't bankrupt you. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=141242432587613&_rdr

The Shack — Pell City Locals call it the best BBQ in the area — great sides, fast and friendly service, and generous helpings. They used to operate out of a gas station. That is not a warning. That is a recommendation. Actually located in Talledega County, apparently, but real close. https://shackbbq.shop/

Docks Bar and Grill — Pell City Great food, lake views, and a laid-back atmosphere where everything is cooked to order. Right on the water. The kind of place you find after a long day on the boat when your knees hurt and you don't want to make decisions. https://docksbarandgrillpc.com/

Horse Pens 40 — Steele Hiking, bouldering, and bluegrass music in an outdoor nature park featuring massive sandstone rock formations atop a mountain. It's ancient. It's weird. It's Alabama at its most honest.

Palisades Park — Ebell Mountain Atop Ebell Mountain in the Appalachian foothills, this park offers picnicking, rock climbing, nature trails, and a restored fire tower you can actually climb — plus an annual Christmas light display. A fire tower with a view of the valley. Bring a thermos.

Ashville Historic District — Ashville The 1845 courthouse anchors the historic district, and just a block off the town square is the Civil War-themed John W. Inzer Museum. Ashville is the county seat that time forgot to update. Walk it slow.

Michael Biehn — Actor Born in Anniston in 1956. His biggest role came as Kyle Reese in 1984's The Terminator. Also showed up in Tombstone, The Rock, and Aliens. The man traveled back through time to save humanity and still had to grow up in Alabama first.

Clayne Crawford — Actor Born in 1978 in Clay, Alabama. He appeared in A Walk to Remember and later had recurring roles in 24 and the A&E series The Glades. Later became known for Lethal Weapon on Fox. Clay, Alabama producing an actor named Crawford who plays dangerous men for a living. The land shapes the man.

The mountain in the middle isn't just geography. It's character.

Everything peculiar about St. Clair County — the two courthouses, the two personalities, the lake culture on one end and the old-court history on the other — traces back to Backbone Mountain running northeast to southwest through the county, making communication and administration from one side to the other historically difficult.

The county didn't split. It just built two front doors.

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🚂 THE BACK PAGE
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From The Roanoke Times, March 17, 1981

This image contains a collection of short responses from various children to a "Mini Forum" question about how they celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Here are some of our favorite responses:

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🚂 SHARE THE WAYNE TRAIN
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Have a wonderful week!