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Logan Saunders 0:00
Hey, I'm Logan Saunders. This is Jay Cooper. And we're interviewing Mr. Hill Barry Hill. And so what areas you're up in and like kind of how were things when you grew up in?

Barry Hill 0:10
I grew up in West Virginia, basically in the late 50s, in the 60s, and then I went off to college, I've always wanted to be a teacher. So that's what I did. And I did it for 42 years.

Logan Saunders 0:29
Like, as you think back about your life, and the challenges you are maybe a family member you had to face when you were growing up in West Virginia? Who are those 10 members and friends who may like help somebody navigate through a challenge or like, maybe like family, neighbors, church, maybe healthcare professionals,

Barry Hill 0:44
oh, let's see, challenges. My mother. She was a teacher. And anytime I struggled in school, she was a very good resource. And when she found that I wasn't doing as well, I guess it was about my sophomore year, we had summer school, at home. And just worked on things that I was struggling with at the time. And it was actually a great, great help. I didn't appreciate it at the time. But in hindsight, it helped me a lot.

Logan Saunders 1:29
So you say like your mother's like the main reason, like you really got into teaching really got into

Barry Hill 1:34
Yes, there are several people in my family who were into teaching. And the fact that considering the timeframe in which she did decided to become a teacher, which was early 60s, women were expected to stay at home and race to take care of their families. Well, my mother was very smart. And not like me. She was smart. She was like valedictorian of her high school and her college classes. And she wanted to go to school. So she and her his or her sister drove an hour and a half across the mountains, even in the winter with the snow, to go to college and came home, and still did all the things that a wife was expected to do. And then she would stay up half the night studying. And it just showed me the importance that our family always placed on education, and how hard it was you needed to work at. If you wanted something you went out, you work for it.

Logan Saunders 2:46
So like as you got to college, or as you moved to here, what were some, like other challenges that you may face in this area?

Barry Hill 2:52
Biggest challenge was, I was very much a homebody. And when I went off to school, the first time I went to a private college, in northern West Virginia, seven hours from home, I don't know that I'd ever spent the night away from our family. So that was quite a challenge. Being that far away knowing that I was only going to go home for holidays, you know, two months at a time, maybe I'd get to go home for a couple of days. So I found that a little bit challenging, maybe a lot challenging.

Logan Saunders 3:34
So how'd you, were there some people you talked to made me some friends that would help you get through that?

Barry Hill 3:39
Yeah. And and the thing that made it interesting was where I went just college, it was called Alderson Broaddus, the first year anyway, I met people from Pennsylvania and from other other places that had different points of view than what I did. And yeah, so I've made some pretty good friends that way. And we did you know, the typical college some crazy stuff. I loved reading, and I love like Huckleberry Finn. Yeah, Mark Twain and stuff. And that was one of the books that we were reading and doing and me and a buddy were on top, went hiking one day on top of the mountain, we were looking down on the Tyger River and said, Man, wouldn't it be great to build us a raft of float down the river like Huck Finn when he came in that evening that I found this a boat? So when you mean you found a boat, said I found a canoe, a kind of a canoe, it was some flooding down the river but we can fix it up and they were building a new dorm. So we went we pulled that boat out of the water. We tarred it. We put new boards in. We put it on top of a buddy's station wagon, took it 20 miles up to the next town. But he asked that question said, Okay, we're going to float down the river. Where do we put this thing in? We had stopped at a filling station. He said, well go up and take this road when you get there. Make sure you turn left go left, not right, or you'll end up above spillway. Well, he did explain that if you turn turn that right on the exit, it would circle into the road and go left. If you went left it would circle and go right he didn't it explain that so we ended up above the spillway on this boat that wasn't seaworthy the cliffs on each side. Above the spillway. We had gotten food from the cafeteria that they'd given us to eat on our two day trip. Suddenly, we're going down the river. And suddenly the water gets going a little faster. Buddy looks like can you see the river out there? No. We managed to pull it over. Get out the well we can't Portage the canoe around it. We'll just push it over. And we'll go down there and catch it. Of course it goes over the spillway. It splits from front to back. Our buddy that was waiting for us at the bridge a mile down the road. all he saw was two halfs of the canoe didn't see us anywhere. Came back looking for us. So yeah. College is a fun thing. Few challenges, and some fun, fun stuff.

Logan Saunders 6:35
Like how would you explain the difference in growing up in like the rural area like besides like meeting somebody in college maybe grew up like a town area or city area?

Barry Hill 6:43
I was a little country boy. Yeah. I don't know what you've studied about or know anything about West Virginia. But it's full of little valleys and hills that go up in the mountains. And where I lived, it was nothing but family. It was my great grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, aunts and uncles, and my grandparents would build a house. They live in one, he built another one and then one of the families would take that house and he built all the houses up there. So it was very country and then moved to the city. It was like nothing I've ever been around. And I hated that part of it. Because people weren't as friendly. Too much congestion did not like anything about city life. I couldn't wait to get back to the country and we'd go hiking in the mountains just to get away from the congestion and whatnot. But you know, I had friends and people that really did enjoy the city so they would sometimes take me Pittsburgh was some such thing for a weekend or whatever. And I learned to adapt to it and I never learned to like it

Logan Saunders 8:13
What would you say the differences between like a kind of like a rural area in West Virginia and a rural area in North Carolina.

Barry Hill 8:22
The farms in North Carolina. There were farms in West Virginia but mountains their large flat places were small. And here you can then suddenly you get all this acreage and flat and no mountains unless you go out to the western part of the state. And I really miss those mountains and getting behind tractors on the road. All those sorts of things. When I first moved here, I found really odd

Logan Saunders 8:54
Who do you think are like some friends or maybe like church or healthcare professionals you found in this area that might help you through challenges and stuff like that?

Barry Hill 9:02
Oh let me think. Healthcare Not, not so much. I love my family doctor, Dr. McKeon Wilson. I found that the health care here is very good. Because you've got to do you've got Wegmans, you got all these large hospital complexes around with the with the university or whatever, that it's much more efficient than it is with the country doctor type situations that you get in West Virginia, and you'll find the hospital there are hospitals and they're good but nothing like these big complexes that you have here. So when you do have a health issue just you know that you can find the specialists and things that you need here that you don't so much yet. You're feeling rural West Virginia.

Logan Saunders 10:13
Do you know somebody that may have had like a serious accident or incident like in like the spring over Bailey or maybe like while you've been here and like who the people were that helped him get through that?

Barry Hill 10:24
Yeah. People with different sorts of cancer, for instance, and they were able to get through those places. And I don't know if you all remember Ms. Williamson, and Dana Williamson, that was your AIG person there, I'm close friends with her and her husband, and she is really, really good at being very supportive and helpful of people who are ill. Did you all have Ms. Brune was she there, but of course, she died about a year ago. And the fact that she basically gave up her life for a year to take care of Ms. Brune practically stayed at her house, you know, helping her through. And it's just somebody I really admire, because of the way she takes care of other people. It's just something that I think she takes care of other people more than she takes care of herself.

Logan Saunders 11:29
You know, you have any, like, other closing remarks or anything you'd like want to comment about?

Barry Hill 11:36
No, other than the fact that I'm happy to be able to see you guys again. So that was, I was up here one day, and they were telling me that they were getting doing this I said, I want to come up and see and be a part of it, because I want to see the guys see how they've changed. Occasionally I run into a few but I want to see that see it over by just doing what they're planning to do. In that way. I'm very happy to be able to take part in this in some way today.

Logan Saunders 12:05
We appreciate it

Barry Hill 12:07
Oh, you are more than welcome.