In partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting, StoryCorps is visiting Huntington to share stories from members of the community. 

The StoryCorps mobile tour made their 8th stop of the 2024 tour by visiting Huntington throughout most of September. 

The team travels around the country collecting different stories, trying to capture voices of people in the United States. Throughout the year, the team visits 10 cities and returned to West Virginia for the first time since 2018. 

At every stop, StoryCorps conducts an outreach to get different members of the community involved by working on behalf of the community, trying to highlight underrepresented voices. 

StoryCorps Bilingual Mobile Facilitator, Sam Berkrot, shared how every community has a different story to share. 

“I think it is really special and interesting getting to hear what the community has to say and the fact that we are living here during this time by default really helps you to learn about the region and community.”

Throughout their time on Marshall’s campus, StoryCorps has been able to hear a variety of stories from the community including professors, students, and people from all over the state. 

“My last recording was between two brothers who are immigrants from Ireland, who are living in other parts of West Virginia came to talk about their family history,” said Berkrot. 

One of the many members of the community who shared their story this last month was a former teacher during the time of the famous Kanawha County textbook controversy.

“Being able to learn that history not only for the first time from someone who experienced it firsthand and have them in the booth is so cool,” said Berkrot.  

The community can expect to find the stories recorded by StoryCorps in Huntington around late November on the StoryCorps archive.

Ella Bumgardner can be contacted at [email protected]