"Mantrip" Magazine, Wheelwright High School, 1986 to 1996

"Mantrip" vol. 1 no. 1

From 1986 to 1996, staff and students at Wheelwright High School in Wheelwright Kentucky published a wonderful little magazine called "Mantrip" which published primarily oral history interviews but also included some fiction and poetry along with wonderful photographs and some local art work. At times, the magazine would include interviews with Kentucky and/or Appalachian writers of some significance. I only own five editions of "Mantrip" which includes Volume 1, Numbers 1 & 2; Volume 2, Number 1; Volume 3, Numbers 1 & 2.  I would love to be able to add all the missing volumes to my collection and I am willing to pay reasonable prices if you have them and are willing to sell.  They are generally very difficult to locate on used book sites on the Internet. This, I suspect, is primarily due to the fact that they were printed in small editions of only a thousand or two.  The few copies I own were generously given to me by one of my best friends, a relatively uneducated man who loved books, writing, and history and decided to pass them on before he died.  Interestingly, the first edition, Volume 1, Number 1, has the header "a ride on the Mantrip" printed on the cover instead of simply "Mantrip" as all the others do.  But on the contents page and in the opening essay, "About Mantrip", it is labeled only "Mantrip".  All the subsequent editions which I own are always simply labeled "Mantrip".  The contents page always states that the magazine is produced by The Oral History Project, Wheelwright High School, and Volume 1, Number 1, also states that the magazine, or at least that initial volume, was funded by a grant from The Kentucky Educational Foundation.  All the volumes I own list Carol Stumbo and Delores Woody as the faculty sponsors.  They also list Knott County Kentucky poet, professor, and lifelong literary mentor Albert Stewart as an editorial advisor. Stewart was also the founder of Appalachian Heritage Magazine during his time at Alice Lloyd College and acted as a mentor to dozens of aspiring writers in Appalachia including this writer. But Robert "Bob" Hall, who was a guidance counselor and former alumnus of Wheelwright High School, was also apparently involved in the work of the project since it contains his poetry from time to time along with interviews with his parents who owned a grocery store in Hall Hollow which they eventually passed on to Bob and his wife Shirley. The importance of the Hall family and Hall Hollow in the life of Wheelwright are chronicled quite well in George D. Torok's wonderful book, "A Guide To Historic Coal Towns Of The Big Sandy River Valley". In the early days of Wheelwright, the Hall family store was one of the few privately owned stores located within the incorporated environs of a coal company owned town.

So far as I know, everyone who was involved as an advisor or faculty member to the project is now deceased.  I personally knew Carol Stumbo, Robert "Bob" Hall, and Albert Stewart.  They had all met at Alice Lloyd College where they all worked as faculty or staff in the late 1960's and beyond.  Stewart and Stumbo were both professors there and Bob Hall was the guidance counselor.  There is no doubt that the three knew and worked with each other at Alice Lloyd College.  But it is also possible that Hall and Stumbo had known each other even before their employment at the college since they grew up in Wheelwright and McDowell located only 13 miles apart on Left Beaver Creek in Floyd County. However, Bob Hall was about 6 years older than Carol Stumbo so it is not likely they knew each other through school activities.  But since Bob's parents operated a well known grocery store in the area and both would have been outstanding students, they could well have known each other even before their tenure at Alice Lloyd College. In time, Albert Stewart retired from Alice Lloyd College and Hall and Stumbo both moved on to Wheelwright High School. Carol Stumbo also served several  years as a member of the Floyd County Kentucky School Board. I did not know or know of Delores Woody although I believe the link I am providing here is her memorial on Find A Grave.

It is somewhat unusual that a small high school in the heart of Appalachia could have produced such a high quality magazine over a period as long as ten years and that fact is a monument to the four individuals who supervised the students who performed most of the work.  Apparently, the Kentucky Historical Society (Volume 35, Number 3, Summer 2007) has managed to preserve a significant collection of the audiotapes from those oral history interviews.   Carol Stumbo also published at least one article in Appalachian Heritage magazine about the involvement of Albert Stewart in the project.  She also published one other article in that magazine on the subject of Appalachian agriculture Volume 14, Number 1, Winter 1986 which may well have arisen from the work on "Mantrip".  In some ways, this entire project might have been modeled after the famous and infamous work of Elliott Wigginton on "Foxfire" at his north Georgia high school.  But over the course of several decades "Foxfire" has survived with the work of other leaders than Wigginton and Wheelwright High School was consolidated out of existence and "Mantrip" died out as well after ten years of important work.

In just the handful of issues of "Mantrip" which I own, the magazine published written or artistic works by Appalachian authors and artists Gurney Norman, Russell May, Tom Whitaker, Albert Stewart, and interviews with Tom Whitaker, Albert Stewart, Billy C. Clark, Gurney Norman, Russell May, and famous newspaperman and genealogist Henry P. Scalf.  That is a phenomenal amount of historical, literary, and artistic preservation for a small magazine being produced by a tiny high school in a coal camp in Eastern Kentucky.  Every issue, every single copy of this little magazine is worthy of being preserved.  If you own copies either keep them, sell them to me and I assure I will keep them to be passed on along with my entire collection to a worthy university for permanent preservation, or pass them on to another person you are absolutely convinced will arrange for their preservation in an appropriate institution.  If you have never read a copy of "Mantrip" and can find one anywhere buy it and read it.  If you cannot find one for sale, search the online collections of college and university libraries in Appalachia and make a trip to read their collection.  If you are a native Appalachian and a student of Appalachian history, culture, literature, art, and oral history, you will love this little magazine and gain valuable information.  Some of the oral history interviews with lesser known residents of the Wheelwright area can also be highly useful to those in search of genealogical information about ancestors who might have lived in Floyd County, Left Beaver, and Wheelwright.