This article originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch

February 24, 2006

By Dave Lavender (an excerpt from a longer article)

'Buffalo Creek' creator to screen films at Man

One of the great Appalachian filmmakers, Mimi Pickering of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Ky., will travel to Man High School's Little Theater at 1 p.m. Saturday. She will show her two award-winning documentaries, "Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man" and "Buffalo Creek Revisited," to mark the anniversary of the devastating Buffalo Creek flood.

Pickering's original Buffalo Creek film was just added to the National Film Registry in late December.

That flood caused by the collapse of a coal-waste dam killed 125 and left 4,000 homeless. The Pittston Company, owners of the dam, maintained the disaster was "an act of God."

After the screening, there will be a discussion with Jack Spadaro, staff engineer on the governor's 1972 inquiry into the disaster and head of MSHA's investigation into the 2000 Martin County, Ky. sludge spill, and Dr. John Alexander Williams, an author of histories of West Virginia and Appalachia who is featured in Mari-Lynn Evans' documentary "The Appalachians."

The screening is hosted by the Buffalo Creek Memorial Library as part of a tour of West Virginia communities sponsored by the Southern Appalachian Labor School and with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council.

For those who can't make it to Man, both films are now available on VHS at Frog Creek Books, located at the Capitol Street Market, 800 Smith St., Charleston. Call (800) 395-7074.

To watch video clips from both movies (which are set to come out on DVD this year), go online at www.appalshop.org and click on the films section.