Project honors fallen miners: ; Website recalls those who died in the Upper Big Branch disaster

Three West Virginia University journalism students are creating amemorial website to commemorate the 29 miners who lost their livesin one of the worst mining accidents in U.S. history.

Katie Griffith, Paige Lavender and Evan Moore have spent monthsgathering media and building a memorial page for each of the miners.When the project is completed, each page will include a forum forfamily and friends to share memories.

"Though the town of Whitesville will eventually have a physicalmemorial, this is a place where anyone can go," Lavender said. "Theydon't have to be in West Virginia to visit the site."

The project is sponsored by West Virginia Uncovered, a program atthe WVU journalism school. The program pairs students with statenewspapers to foster community storytelling and multimediajournalism.

Griffith, who previously worked with the uncovered project as astudent, continued to work with the program as an AmeriCorps Vistavolunteer. She was hired soon after the mine disaster and wanted todo something to keep the memory of the miners alive. She was pairedwith Lavender, a journalism undergraduate, to get the projectunderway.

"What we wanted to do from the beginning was to let the communitytell their own story of what had happened and control their ownstory," Griffith said. "When a reporter goes down, they have thepower over how the story is told. We wanted to give the communitythat power."

"A lot of the reason we're doing this is after May 2010 youdidn't see a lot about the miners and their families in the news,"Lavender said. Instead, the media became sharply focused on theexplosion's investigative reports, mining regulation and othertechnical issues.

In August they traveled to the Whitesville area to becomeacquainted with the community. They knew from the onset approachingthe grieving family and friends was not going to be simple.

"We had to ease our way into this project," Lavender said. "We'rea couple of outsiders; we didn't want to step on anyone's toes orcause discomfort."

The two took their time getting to know the community beforeapproaching the families for stories.

"We went to church functions and spaghetti dinners," Lavendersaid. "We wanted to make our faces known and our names known,"

"It's very difficult; things are still very raw," said Griffith."It's not even a year after the disaster."

When they believed the community was comfortable with them andreceptive to the project, Griffith and Lavender contacted familymembers and conducted interviews. Those who participated sharedtheir thoughts, remembrances and grief, relating what the experiencewas like. They contributed photographs and stories about the lostminers.

In January, Evan Moore, another journalism student, joined theFaces of the Mine project, particularly helping with the website'sconstruction. Although the site is holding its grand launch for thedisaster's anniversary on April 5, it is already open for people toexplore.

So far, memorial pages are up and running for nine of the minerswho died. Each includes a picture and biography. At the bottom ofeach page is an area for family and friends to share messages fortheir loved ones, stories or condolences. These comments aremoderated to prevent distasteful comments from disrupting thememorial forum.

"We wanted to facilitate communication," Griffith said, "giving aplace for people to talk about their own stories and what wasimportant to them and what they thought about what happened."

One challenge was getting in touch with some miners' families.

They are still waiting on biography contributions and photographsfor a handful of the miners. Thus far, most of the families havelearned about Faces of the Mine through Facebook, Twitter, or word-of-mouth, but spreading the word and sharing media for a website canbe challenging, as some families did not have Internet access.

The students will try to contact these people by phone or someother means, hoping they'll have the rest of the miners' pages onthe site in time for the anniversary.

When the project is completed they will pass the webpage into thecommunity's hands. Mike Gwinn, a member of the community who becameenthusiastically involved in the making of the site, will monitorit.

Lavender and Griffith were initially worried some people would beopposed or uncomfortable with the project, but they said everyonehas been supportive so far.

"We have received e-mails and Facebook messages from peoplethanking us," Lavender said. "It's very humbling."

Contact writer Catherine Caudill atcatherine.caudill@dailymail.com or 304-348-4886.