This article originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch

March 17, 2007

Huntington resident among protesters

HUNTINGTON -- Still fighting.

What Huntington resident Winnie Fox wanted on her 87th birthday was to get arrested.

Well, it's a little more complicated than that. She wanted to get arrested for a cause she believes in. And so she joined a group of environmentalists and concerned citizens who crowded in Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area Friday morning to protest a coal silo planned near a Raleigh County school.

Fourteen people were arrested, but Fox was not one of them. She thinks it was because of her age.

At one point, "I said, 'Read me my rights and handcuff me. I want to go with the rest of them,' " she said. "And they wouldn't do it. That would have made them look bad, I guess."

An OVEC volunteer, Fox said she can't sit by and watch things happen anymore.

"We've waited so long, and nothing has changed," she said. "When you keep doing the same thing and nothing changes, you know what that's called? Insanity. They've ruined streams, lives, and we're not going to take it anymore. It has to stop. We have no intention of taking it anymore because we're not insane."

OVEC organizer Maria Gunnoe joined the crowds at the Capitol as well. They might not have been welcome, but their request was a reasonable one, she said.

"We want a safe school for these children to attend in their own community," the Boone County resident said. "What we're asking for is not huge -- it's a safe school for our children. ... A lot of coal goes out of here -- nothing comes back to these people. Nothing comes back to these communities."