"The words 'Eastern Kentucky' might bring to mind mountains, unemployed coal miners and economic hardship, but Agriculture Commissioner James Comer would like to replace that image with tomatoes, apples and bees. 'It's not a very big agriculture region, but it can be,' Comer said during an interview Friday. 'I think there's a lot of opportunity there.' On Monday, Comer will unveil a regional marketing initiative that builds on the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Kentucky Proud branding efforts."

"Officials in eastern Kentucky are moving forward with a project to expand drug rehabilitation at the Pike County jail. Officials told the Appalachian News-Express that the initiative to turn part of the former Pike County Hall of Justice into a rehabilitation area would more than double the room for participants. Magistrates approved an agreement this month that allows work on the $2.4 million project to proceed."

"The Rev. Jamie Coots, 42, one of two serpent-handling Pentecostal preachers who starred last fall in the National Geographic Channel’s reality TV show 'Snake Salvation,' often admitted during the 16-part series that one of the poisonous reptiles he handled might be the death of him. This past Saturday night, one was. While handling snakes during a regular Saturday night service at his church, the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name, in Middlesboro, Ky., the pastor was bitten on his right hand by a rattlesnake. Less than two hours later, he was dead."

"Methamphetamine is a growing problem in West Virginia, so its Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to require a prescription to buy cold medications that contain pseudoephedrine, a key ingredients in making meth, Eric Eyre reports for The Charleston Gazette.  Oregon and Mississippi are the only states with such laws. A bill for one in Indiana died this month. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has a bill to limit the amount on pseudoephedrine that could be bought without a prescription, more than any other state. His administration has said the state leads the nation in meth use."

"The United States may be thought of as the good ol’ 'Red, White, and Blue,' but in the minds of many, Appalachian America is simply 'white, white, white'— racially, that is. The stereotype of Appalachia as a strictly white Anglo-Saxon region has been perpetuated by journalists, novelists, social scientists, and even many regional historians. Yet this generalization over-simplifies a more complicated — and more colorful — reality."

"In an interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rick Bragg, John Sledge tells the story of Mr. Bragg’s encounter with the acclaimed author Willie Morris, who opened Mr. Bragg’s memoir 'All Over But the Shoutin’,' and read several pages aloud. He slammed the book and leaned forward, telling Mr. Bragg, 'You say it’s the story, and I say it’s the language.' Mr. Sledge is talking about the voices in Mr. Bragg’s books, which ring true down to the red Alabama grit on their shoes. Every voice on paper has a linguistic and social history that needs to be heard."

"Although Harold Voyles hasn’t lived in the Bluegrass State for 28 years, he still calls Kentucky home. He was raised in Lynch, once one of the largest coal mining camps in America, boasting a population of 11,000 after World War II. Today the population is less than 1,000. Voyles has written a play, Shadow of a Man, which informs the reader about a region in America that is too often stereotyped."

"The Appalachian Heritage Council presents the sixth annual Old-Time Fiddler’s Convention Feb. 7-8 in the Appalachian State University’s Plemmons Student Union. The convention celebrates the rich musical and cultural history of Appalachia and will offer workshops, a handmade market, music competitions, and a concert to end the festivities."

"Researchers at West Virginia University are part of a three-agency collaborative assessing the impact the Appalachian Regional Commission has made in the past 50 years. The study group consists of the Regional Research Institute and the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, both at WVU, along with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, a nonprofit research organization based in Arlington, Va."

"Robert E. 'Bob' Murray, the pugnacious owner of Ohio-based coal giant Murray Energy Corp., keeps his lawyers busy. Besides appealing safety fines, over the past few years his company has sued two news organizations -- the Charleston Gazette and Huffington Post -- for defamation and the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration for levying 'unfounded and baseless violation citations.' More recently, the company turned it up a notch, announcing it will sic its lawyers on the Environmental Protection Agency."

"Several new reports predict that the Central Appalachia coal field -- mostly southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky -- will continue to fade, inflicting painful harm on blue-collar families and local economies. The Wall Street Journal outlined the decline in a string of reports on 'The future of coal.' A Jan. 7 segment said the coal industry 'is booming in the open-pit mines of Wyoming and under the plains of Illinois and Indiana' while 'coal production plunges in the green hills of Appalachia.'"

"Last year was a tough one for the coal industry. Some coal companies laid off workers, while others cut their output. And more than a half-dozen U.S. coal-mining companies went under, beset by new environmental rules and competition from low-cost natural gas. But coal isn’t going away. Coal remains the biggest source of fuel for generating electricity in the U.S. and coal exports are growing fast. Even as coal production plunges in the green hills of Appalachia, it is booming in the open-pit mines of Wyoming and under the plains of Illinois and Indiana. Overall, U.S. coal production is projected to remain relatively constant over the next three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration."

The tug Renee Lynn hauls coal in barges for the Campbell Transportation shipyard along the Ohio River in between Ohio and West Virginia. Campbell continues to ship coal to a dozen power plants and steel mills in five states. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Swensen for The Wall Street Journal)