By Jack Houvouras
HQ 116 | WINTER 2022
Diversity seems to be the latest buzzword across America. I only mention it because as we were planning this edition of the magazine, it occurred to me that we had a nice, diverse list of stories. It wasn’t anything we planned. It just happened. As is always the case, we were simply looking for the best stories possible.
Our cover story is about a woman who rose to success in a male-dominated industry. I first met Beth Hammers, or “Buffy” as her friends know her, in college. Our paths crossed numerous times over the years, and then one day I opened the newspaper and learned that she had been named the CEO of Marshall Health — which today is one of the 25 largest private employers in West Virginia. As if that weren’t impressive enough, I later learned that she was pulling double duty as the chief administrative officer of the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. How she manages to do both, serve on numerous boards, maintain a successful marriage of 26 years and raise two accomplished children is beyond me. At the very least I knew she deserved to be recognized.
As we were preparing for this edition, it was announced that Huntington had hired Karl C. Colder, the first Black police chief in the Huntington Police Department’s 149-year history. We obviously thought that warranted a story. What resulted was a Q&A with the former special agent in charge for the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration’s Washington, D.C., Field Division Office about his plans to better “protect and serve” the citizens of our community.
In the fall the hit TV show The Voice was underway, and before long the country got to know a talented singer from our region. Holly Forbes, whose home is in nearby Catlettsburg, Kentucky, quickly won the hearts of both the judges and the viewers. She would go on to make the Top 10 before her run on the show finally ended. In our article you will learn that Forbes got her start at clubs in Huntington on open mic night, and that she is very fond of her roots: “Our area gets a bad rap, but there are so many unique and amazingly talented people here, and I try to tell everyone that,” she says.
Another story in the music genre that caught our eye was the rising success of a local band named Ona. The group of indie rockers from Huntington chose the name when lead singer Bradley Jenkins showed up to rehearsals one day wearing an Ona Little League baseball cap. Since then they have developed a cult following and are now garnering national attention. In fact, Vice Magazine described Ona as “the next great rock band” in a 2019 article. That’s some serious praise.
If you love art, then you need to check out our story on Huntington Museum of Art Executive Director Geoff Fleming. He recently published a book titled Eclectic Rhythms that features the work and bios of nearly 600 artists with ties to Huntington. Just some of those featured in the book include June Kilgore, Chuck Ripper, Adele Thornton Lewis, Stan Sporny and Don Pendleton.
And finally, there is an article in this edition that I believe is one of the best we have ever published. It tells the story of five young men who found their way from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Huntington in the late 1960s to play football for Marshall. All five were talented enough athletes to play for the college in their hometown — the University of Alabama — but back then Coach Bear Bryant did not recruit Black players. As a result, all five chose to play for the Thundering Herd. Then, in 1970, tragedy struck when four of the young men perished in the Marshall plane crash. Freshman Reggie Oliver was the only one of the Tuscaloosa boys who didn’t make the fateful trip to Greenville, North Carolina. In a bitter twist of irony, the University of Alabama began recruiting Black players the following season. Had the university done so just two years earlier, perhaps all four of those young men would still be alive today.
