On Monday, December 9th, Governor Steve Beshear and Representative Hal Rogers spearheaded a summit in Pikeville, Kentucky, called Shaping Our Appalachia Region (SOAR). The purpose of the conference was to discuss Eastern Kentucky’s economic future. The economic downturn in the region is commonly linked to the recent loss of jobs in the coal industry, but the issue has a longer history. President Lyndon B. Johnson (US president from 1963-1969) visited Martin County, KY, and declared a “war on poverty.” As this interactive map indicates, poverty was widespread across the entire southeast in
