Welcome to the Wayne Train.

Pull up a chair. There's no breaking news here. No doomscrolling. Just Appalachia — the food, the history, the characters, and the stories worth telling on a Sunday morning.

If you like it, please forward to a friend who enjoys a weekly slice of Appalachia served with the love Aunt Bea gave the Sunday pot roast she fixed after church for Andy, Opie, Barney, and Gomer.

If somebody sent this your way, good taste runs in your circle.

Ride along at thewaynetrain.com

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🚂 WELCOME ABOARD
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This week on The Wayne Train:

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🗞 FEATURED STORY
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Before radio. Before television. Before the internet told everybody what to think before breakfast.

There was a time in Appalachia when news traveled by wagon, gossip traveled by porch, and hope sometimes arrived on horseback.

His name was Robert Sayers Sheffey.

And if you lived in the mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, or the surrounding country in the late 1800s, there was a fair chance you had heard of him. Seen him. Or knew somebody who swore they had.

Sheffey was a Methodist preacher.

But calling him only that is like calling a thunderstorm "some weather."

He rode circuit through rough country, down muddy trails, to reach people the world had mostly forgotten. He preached in little churches, in cabins, in fields, in courthouses, at camp meetings, and anywhere folks would stand still long enough to listen.

He did not look like the polished religion of town.

He was known to ride hard, speak plain, pray loud, and show up where nobody expected him. He might arrive muddy, hungry, and tired — carrying the kind of urgency that makes people stop sweeping the porch and pay attention.

Mountain people understand authenticity quicker than anybody. They can smell pretense from two counties away.

That may be why Sheffey lasted.

Here is something worth knowing about the man.

His contemporaries largely agreed that he was the most powerful man in prayer they had ever seen — and also that he couldn't preach a lick. He'd take a Bible text at the start of a sermon and never find his way back to it. His preaching was mostly just stories from his own life.

Didn't seem to matter.

Methodist preacher George C. Rankin remembered that although Sheffey acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents, and have genuine conversions by the score.

Not bad for a man who couldn't preach a lick.

He was said to care little for appearances and a great deal for souls. Stories say he gave away money he needed himself. Handed clothing to those worse off. Interrupted his own plans because he felt led to visit someone in trouble.

And then there were the bugs.

Sheffey was known to regularly right overturned beetles he found on the road, and to drop out of funeral processions entirely to lift insects out of the path of wagon wheels.

A man riding in a funeral procession, stopping to rescue a beetle.

In Appalachia, that story didn't make people think less of him. It made them trust him more.

The whiskey stories are something else entirely.

Folklore experts have documented at least twenty-five separate accounts of Sheffey's prayers leading to the immediate destruction of whiskey stills and distilleries — and these weren't moonshiners hiding in hollers. Private distilling was perfectly legal at the time. Sheffey just hated what liquor did to families, and he prayed about it. Loudly. Specifically.

One minister recalled Sheffey praying against three distilleries on a single creek. The stories that followed were not gentle. Whether you take them as miracle or coincidence probably says something about you.

Then there's Ivanhoe.

Sheffey held several weeks of meetings in his own hometown. When the citizens rejected his message, preferring the kind of debauchery that tends to follow mining town prosperity, Sheffey shook the dust off his feet and condemned the place.

Cursed it, some said.

Years later, an Ivanhoe resident said in a documentary: "Whether you believe in it or not, after that happened, we lost everything." Entire houses eventually disappeared into sinkholes.

Make of that what you will. People in the mountains did.

Whether every tale is gospel truth or polished legend hardly matters now.

In Appalachia, stories get polished because they're handled often. Sheffey's were handled plenty.

Some said he'd stop cold on the road, bow his head, and pray for a family miles away. Others claimed he showed up just when somebody needed comfort, food, or a stern talking-to. That last part matters too.

Old-time mountain preachers were not soft-spoken men on a schedule. They could comfort the grieving on Tuesday and blister gamblers on Wednesday. Pray over a sick child, then march straight to the local troublemaker and advise him, with some urgency, to improve immediately.

Sheffey fit that mold.

The end came slowly.

He spent his final years in rural Giles County, worn down by rheumatism, refusing his son's invitation to come live in Lynchburg. He died at the home of a friend named Aurelius Vest — a farmer, coffin builder, and country undertaker — near White Gate, Virginia, on August 30, 1902.

There is something very Sheffey about that. Dying at the home of a man who built coffins. No fuss. No city. Right there in the mountains where he belonged.

His last words, according to those who were there, were directed at his son: "You can't count the angels I see right now. And there's your mother among 'em. I can't stay here any longer. You come on."

More than a century later, his name still turns up in mountain histories and old church stories.

In 1974, a journalist named Jess Carr came across what he assumed was a funeral being conducted at the Wesley Chapel Cemetery. A local storekeeper corrected him: people visited Sheffey's grave all the time, year-round. Carr went on to write a biography.

That is how immortality works in the hills.

Not statues. Not fancy titles. Not being mentioned by important people in important rooms.

You are remembered because somebody's grandmother once said, "I'll tell you about the day Sheffey came by here."

We live now in a time of endless messaging and very little presence. Plenty of opinion. Not nearly enough muddy boots on porch steps.

Sheffey reminds us that influence once looked different.

It looked like going where you were needed.

No announcement. No algorithm. No verification badge.

Just a tired man on a horse, stopping to rescue a beetle, then riding on toward somebody who needed him.

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📡 FROM THE DIGITAL HOLLER
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Lots of things are dying in this world.

Manners. Patience. The art of the firm handshake. TV shows that wrap up in less than eight seasons.

But the one that keeps me up at night — the one that ought to keep you up — is the local newspaper.

I know. I know. You haven't picked one up since whenever. The ink smeared on your fingers. The thing showed up two days late half the time. The sports section was three pages, and one of those was bowling scores.

But here's what that smeared ink was doing.

It was watching.

That's the word nobody uses anymore. Watching. Somebody showed up at the school board meeting at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday and sat in a metal folding chair for three hours while grown adults argued about the cafeteria budget. Somebody wrote it down. Somebody put it on page four, below the fold, next to an ad for a used sewing machine.

And the school board knew it.

That's the part that's almost gone now.

Television used to help carry the load. I'm old enough to remember when the six o'clock news meant something. A serious man in a serious tie looking into the camera and telling you what happened in your town that day. Not your country. Not the world. Your town.

That's not what it is anymore. I don't know what to call what it is now. Entertainment dressed up in a blazer, maybe. Breaking news that was broken two days ago on somebody's phone.

But whatever it is, it doesn't know the name of your county judge-executive. It's not sitting in that metal folding chair.

Radio. Lord, I loved local radio. The farm report at five in the morning. The obituaries read out loud by a man with a voice like a church organ. High school game scores rattled off on Friday night like they mattered, because they did.

Now your radio either plays the same forty songs on a loop or podcasts about true crime and interest rates. Can't use it to train a cat. Can't line a birdcage with a signal.

And your telephone. It used to hang on the wall in the kitchen and it stayed there, tethered like a good dog. Now it goes everywhere you go, knows everything you do, and still somehow can't tell you who's running for city council.

So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with the local paper. Or what's left of it. Getting thinner. Fewer pages. One reporter instead of twelve. Sometimes nobody at all.

Today is World Press Freedom Day. The big boys will hold conferences. Editors in Washington will talk about accountability journalism and threats to democracy.

They're not wrong. But they're not talking about your paper.

They're not talking about the woman at the Harlan Daily Enterprise who drove forty-five minutes in a snowstorm to cover a water main break because it was somebody's water. Or the reporter at the Sentinel-Echo who knew everybody's grandmother by name and wrote her obituary like it mattered.

Because it did.

I am not a man who romanticizes things. You don't last forty-plus years in a newsroom by being soft about reality.

But I'll tell you this flat.

When the local paper dies, something else dies with it. Not freedom, exactly. Not right away. Nothing dramatic like that.

Just the watching stops.

The school board figures that out pretty fast. So does the sheriff. So does whoever's deciding what goes in the water.

You don't have to subscribe to save democracy. That's a bumper sticker.

But you might want to subscribe to find out if the pothole on your road is in next year's budget.

That's real. That's local. That's the paper.

Go find yours. It's probably thinner than you remember.

Subscribe anyway.

Press Freedom Week runs April 27 through May 3. World Press Freedom Day is May 3. Both are worth a few minutes of your time.

Wayne Knuckles is a veteran of the newspaper industry and publisher of The Wayne Train. He began his career as a sports writer for his hometown weekly newspaper, The Pineville Sun.

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🗞 APPALACHIA 250
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There are roads built with concrete, steel, surveys, and government contracts.

Then there are roads built because people got tired of waiting.

The Wilderness Road was the second kind.

It wasn’t born in a statehouse or drafted by committee. It began as game trails, Indian paths, muddy traces, and stubborn human desire. Folks wanted land, room, a fresh start, and a place where nobody knew their troubles.

There was one problem.

The mountains were in the way.

Today, when you drive through Cumberland Gap, it feels like geography.

Back then, it felt like a locked door.

Steep ridges. Thick timber. Bad footing. Narrow passes. Rain that turned the ground into soup. Danger in every direction. If your wagon broke, that was your problem. If your ox wandered off, that was also your problem.

America wanted west.

Appalachia held the key.

Enter Daniel Boone.

Now let’s be honest. Boone has been polished up, mythologized, stretched, and turned into more legend than man over the years. Coonskin cap stories. Tall tales. Hero worship.

The real Boone was better.

He was a woodsman. A pathfinder. A man who knew how to move through country that could humble stronger men by noon.

In 1775, Boone and a crew cut a trail through the Gap into Kentucky. Not a highway. Not even close.

A passage.

Sometimes that’s all history needs.

👉 Read the full story

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🗞 APPALACHIA IN THE NEWS
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Buried treasure in the Appalachians?
The old mountains may be hiding a very modern prize. According to a new report highlighted by Bloomberg News, the Appalachian region could contain enough lithium to help power roughly 130 million electric vehicles. That’s the kind of number that turns sleepy ridgelines into strategic ground overnight.

For a region long tied to coal, timber, and grit, this story hints at a new chapter. Could the next Appalachian boom come from batteries instead of black rock?

Worth a look with your Sunday coffee.

👉 Read the full story

Vanishing fields in the mountains

When most folks picture Appalachia, they think forests. But scattered across those hills are pockets of grassland. And they’re quietly slipping away. A new report highlighted by Nashville Public Radio (WPLN News) shows these open landscapes are among the region’s most vulnerable habitats, squeezed by development, changing land use, and time itself.

The good news. Researchers say there’s still a path forward. With the right conservation work, these grasslands can be restored and protected before they disappear for good. It’s a reminder that not everything worth saving in Appalachia grows tall and thick. Some of it lies low to the ground.

👉 Read the full story

In coal country, black lung surges

It was supposed to be a thing of the past. But black lung is still working its way through coal country. A report from Yale Environment 360 takes a hard look at miners in Pennsylvania who are facing the disease decades after many thought it had faded.

For Appalachia, this isn’t just history. It’s right now. Advances in mining haven’t erased the risks, and for too many families, the cost still shows up years later in a doctor’s office. It’s a sobering reminder that some stories in these mountains don’t end when the headlines move on.

👉 Read the full story

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🗞 KAY’S CORNER
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Handheld fans, have you ever used one?

Do you remember them before air conditioning was ever heard of?

My parents attended and raised their family of five children in the Sand Gap United Baptist Church in Jackson County, Ky.

There was no such thing as a nursery or children’s church. When we went inside that little country church, we were going to be there for a while all together. Mommy and daddy made sure of that. No running around in church. Church was a much respected and sacred place.

It wouldn’t be long into the service before you would see the old handheld fans come out and start swaying back and forth. Sometimes it seemed as if they were keeping time with the singing, almost like musical instruments.

If you took time to read the writing on the fans, you would find they were supplied by the local funeral home.

Was it a form of advertisement or just generosity by a business?

Maybe a bit of both.

Just recently, the little country church that my family and I attend was the place for a local citizen’s funeral service. The church was filled to the brim with community members showing love and respect for the family.

Then there was a meal provided for the family and friends of the deceased. That’s just what we do in and around our part of the world.

The church is fully air-conditioned to keep everyone comfortable. A room full of people can get mighty warm and uncomfortable no matter what the temperature is outside.

After returning to the church on Sunday, a wonderful time of worship and fellowship was anticipated. As I sat in the pew where I usually sit, I looked and, lo and behold, there in front of me in the songbook holder was the handheld fan.

Not just one, but two.

One from the funeral home, and you would never guess the second one.

Get ready. Try guessing.

I kid you not. It was a company that specializes in home health services for seniors.

Well, that’s a first for me.

Was it a form of advertisement or just generosity of a business?

Maybe a bit of both.

Bible Verse of the Week

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

Gospel singer Kay Himes Knuckles has been sharing her music ministry in Eastern and Central Kentucky for more than 40 years.

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📜 KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS
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The Wayne Train visits all 423 Appalachian counties, one week at a time.

Population: just under 100,000 people.

In the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Piedmont country. Cotton fields that turned into textile mills that turned into something still being figured out.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

Cleveland County was formed in 1841, carved out of Rutherford and Lincoln counties, and named for a man worth knowing about.

Colonel Benjamin Cleveland was a huge man — some accounts put him at 500 pounds — whose arms would not meet across his body. In his final years, a special chair was built for him on rollers, which served as both his chair and his bed for the last nine years of his life.

That's a county founder.

A man too big for a regular chair, memorialized in a place too stubborn to stay small.

👉 Read the full story

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📜 APPALACHIAN ALMANAC
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May comes in cocky.

The moon is waxing toward full this week, working its way through Sagittarius and into Capricorn. Moisture is pulling upward. The old-timers called this the time to put in above-ground crops — beans, squash, corn — anything that wants to climb toward something.

Plant beans this week if you haven't already made your peace with missing the window. The signs are right. The ground's warm enough. The only argument left is your own laziness, and the moon doesn't care about that.

👉 Read the full story

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📜 APPALACHIAN HOROSCOPE
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Wayne Train Appalachian Almanac Appalachian Astrology: May 3–9

What the stars are saying from the holler to the high ridge

Now before anybody writes in, let's be clear. I don't believe in astrology.

I also want to be clear that I read my horoscope every single week, have for thirty years, and once rescheduled a fishing trip because Mercury was in retrograde and I didn't want to deal with the outboard motor acting up.

The difference between regular astrology and Appalachian astrology is this: regular astrology tells you Venus is in Taurus and you should open your heart to abundance. Appalachian astrology tells you Venus is in Taurus and you should probably check the barn roof before that storm comes through Thursday.

One of these is useful. Here's what the heavens are whispering this week.

👉 Read the full story

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📜 FOOD FOR THE APPALACHAIN SOUL
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There wasn’t any such thing as “stir fry” where Grandpa and I grew up. But we had pork, a skillet, and whatever vegetables were ready that day.

Turns out, that’s all you need.

🧾 WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Meat
• 1 to 1.5 lbs pork loin, sliced thin

Marinade
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp oil (any kind)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp ginger (optional)

Vegetables
• 1 bell pepper, sliced
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 1 zucchini or green beans
• Optional: cabbage, mushrooms, carrots

Sauce
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• ½ cup broth or water
• 1 tsp cornstarch

Serve with: Rice or noodles

🔪 STEP 1: SLICE IT RIGHT
Slice pork thin. About 1/8 inch. Always against the grain.
Tip: Chill it in the freezer 20 minutes first.

🥣 STEP 2: MARINATE (10–20 MINUTES)
Mix pork with marinade ingredients. Let it sit while you prep everything else.

🔥 STEP 3: COOK HOT AND FAST
Heat skillet until hot. Add oil.
Cook pork 2–3 minutes total. Do not overcook.
Remove and set aside.

🥦 STEP 4: COOK VEGETABLES
Same pan. Add oil if needed.
Cook 3–5 minutes until just tender.

🥄 STEP 5: BRING IT TOGETHER
Add pork back in.
Pour in sauce.
Stir 30–60 seconds until thickened.

🍽️ SERVE
Spoon over rice and call it done.

💡 KITCHEN NOTES
• Tough pork = sliced too thick or overcooked
• No sesame oil? Use what you’ve got
• Want heat? Add red pepper flakes
• This works with chicken too

🪑 FRONT PORCH THOUGHT
You don’t need fancy tools. Just a hot skillet and enough sense to pull the pork before it turns into boot leather.

👉 Want more recipes like this every Sunday?
Subscribe to The Wayne Train and pull up a chair.

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📜 THE BACK PAGE
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