Published: September 23, 2021 |

Congresswoman Miller speaks to participants at the Sylvester Mine Rescue Contest. (Photo: Coal Valley News)
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The Town of Sylvester hosted the Sylvester Mine Rescue Contest last week, with kick-off events launching the festivities on Wednesday morning.

During the event, teams gathered at Sylvester Pavilion Park to solve hypothetical mine-related problems while being timed and observed by judges. The contest promoted mine safety by sharpening the skills of miners who may be called to respond to a mine emergency in the future.

The event was spearheaded by Sylvester Mayor Harvey Ferrell, who spent months planning for the festivities.

Brent Bender, director of Compliance for Blackhawk Mining, was part of the crew of people working at the site to get the event started.

“We’ve had a lot of help bringing this all together; the state agency provided about 40 inspectors to help us put this on, and it takes about 60 people to put this contest on and we can’t thank everyone who participated and gave of their time enough. It takes a lot of planning, and Harvey Ferrell has worked his tail off to put this together,” Bender said.

“The biggest challenge is the logistics to bring it together. The town of Sylvester has done a ton of work here at the park, and it is pretty amazing looking at it today with two mine rescue fields on it. It is good for the community and good for them to see this,” Bender added.

Congresswoman Carol Miller addressed participating miners and answered questions from participants prior to her public greeting which served as a springboard for the event.

She expressed to the CVN why she felt it was so important for her to attend the event and help launch it at 8 a.m.

“Besides the fact that this has been the heart and soul of West Virginia, and southern West Virginia has supported (the state) for (many) years, and the hard work that these guys do and they try so hard to be safe,” she said.

“It is so important that they are doing what they are doing, and coal has been West Virginia. I support that and I also support the science that we’re doing in what we can do next with coal and how we can make fibers and we can do graphite,” Miller said.

“I want to be a part of where we are going with it, but I want to support our hard-working miners because they want to be safe. I’ve watched the coal industry since I went in the house (of delegates) in 2006, and I’ve seen the improvements in what they’ve done to be safe and it is Southern West Virginia — I love it down here,” Miller added.

Del. Josh Holstein spoke about the importance of the event and his desire to see more like it in the future in this home county of Boone.

“This is coal country, and we have a deep history here,” Holstein said.

“Why wouldn’t you want to have an event like this here? This area is often overlooked and events like this should be a regular occurrence. We have an opportunity here with the work Mayor Ferrell has done to have more events like this here. It is impressive and very well done by all involved. It highlights this area quite well and we need it here along this (Big Coal) river,” Holstein added.

Source: Coal Valley News

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