Thursday, April 22, 2010

Larry Gibson, Keeper of the Mountains

Meet Larry Gibson, a hero of the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining for over 25 years.
A drawing for a Vespa scooter will be held that evening to support Larry. Tickets are available at the reception or online HERE.

• 4-5 pm: Larry Gibson: Stopping Mountaintop Removal Lecture at Appalachian State University, Linville Room, Plemmons Student Union
• 6-8pm:. Reception for Larry and Drawing for a Vespa Scooter at the The Greenhouse, 164 South Depot Street across from Footsloggers. Refreshments and live music will be provided.

• 8-11pm: Afterparty with Live music from Here’s to the Long Haul at Galileo’s Bar & Cafe, 1087 West King Street

Sponsored by Appalachian Voices, The Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy (AIRE), and The Appalachian State University Sustainable Energy Society (ASUSES).

About Larry

Larry Gibson is a founding leader of the movement to end mountaintop removal mining. He works tirelessly to educate and motivate tens of thousands of people to become involved in the movement to stop this destructive practice. Gibson has worked with numerous national, state and local organizations and luminaries such as climate scientist James Hansen. For over a decade, Gibson has traveled across the country to hundreds of universities, churches, stockholder meetings, and conferences educating audiences about mountaintop removal and the importance of preserving Appalachian culture and heritage.

Gibson organized local citizens in West Virginia to permanently protect Kayford Mountain in 1985, and they won. To ensure his ancestral land would not become a part of the 7,000-acre mountaintop removal site that surrounds it today, Gibson established Stanley Heirs Park. In 2005, Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3, was founded to support Gibson’s education and activism.

Gibson has hosted thousands of people at his homeplace in order to witness the destruction of the surrounding mountains firsthand including students, media, journalists, government officials, celebrities, and future activists from across the country. Gibson was honored as a CNN Hero and has walked across the state of West Virginia. He has testified to the United Nations and the United States Senate and been featured in countless movies, books, and magazines including National Geographic, Vanity Fair, O Magazine, Kilowatt Ours, and Burning the Future.

Gibson has literally put his life on the line for the past 25 years to make mountaintop removal a household issue. Larry needs our support now more than ever.