In this episode we’re exploring a different side of the black lung epidemic through the stories of women who lost their husbands to black lung. OVR Reporter Sydney Boles talks with Deborah Boggs, Joyce Birman, Vickie Salyers (pictured), and Nancy Potter who share fond memories from their husbands lives, as well as some of the struggles they faced while living with black lung. She also talks with Evan Smith, an attorney with AppalReD Legal Aid, about the federal black lung benefits system and how a program that was designed to help miners and their families became mired in bureaucracy.

You’re listening to Mtn. Talk on WMMT. In this episode we bring you an hour of interviews with women who lost loved ones to black lung disease. Up next, we hear from Deborah Boggs, whose husband Ronnie died in 2016.

Interviews/etc continued

That’s it for this episode of Mtn. Talk, featuring interviews with women who lost spouses to the black lung epidemic.

If you’d like to hear this or previous episodes again, visit our website at www.wmmt.org or download Mtn. Talk wherever you get your podcasts. Music on this episode features Carla Grover with a tune called “Could You Love Me One More Time” from the album “Hush, my restless soul.” That album was produced by Appalshop's own June Appal Recordings.