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BEYOND THE PALE
CENSUS FOOTNOTE LITTLE CONCERN TO 'WHITEST' COUNTY
Andy Mead
[email]Amead@herald-Leader.Com[/email]

SALYERSVILLE -- This is the kind of relaxed small town where it's not unusual to see three 11-year-old boys out on their own on a Saturday afternoon, heading to the Kozy Korner restaurant to satisfy the kind of hunger that builds up during football practice in the August heat.
What was unusual about the trio of Andrew Arnett, Aaron Taulbee and Nick Anderson is that Nick is black. In Magoffin County and Salyersville, the county seat, that is rare indeed.
The Eastern Kentucky county got a little national attention last week when the Census Bureau singled it out as one of the two whitest places in the country.
Specifically, Magoffin tied with Iowa's Mitchell County for the largest percentage of the category that demographers call "Non-Hispanic white alone."
In both counties, 98.9 percent of the people check that box.
William Turner, a sociologist who has studied African-Americans in Appalachia, said there are probably few black people in Magoffin because there were few coal-mining or other jobs to lure them there.
Living in a place with so little diversity can leave a person unprepared for life in the larger world, said Turner, who was recently appointed to an endowed chair in Appalachian studies at Berea College.
"A county like that needs to do something, if no more than import lecturers and programs, to introduce people to the fact that you are living in a very unreal world here," Turner said.
The Census Bureau's Magoffin County mention was a footnote to a larger story about the growth of minorities across the land.
Chad Berry, director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College, said it would be wrong to cite the Magoffin statistic as evidence that Appalachia is all white. In fact, he said, the region as a whole is becoming less white as the numbers of blacks, Native Americans and especially Latinos increase.
But Magoffin is not an island. Fourteen of the state's 120 counties, most of them in Eastern Kentucky, are more than 98 percent white.
With their combined combined minority populations of 1.1 percent, Magoffin and the Iowa county were whiter than the nation's other 3,139 counties. In Fayette County, by contrast, nearly one in four people (23.8 percent) belongs to a minority group.
Those statistics apparently drew little or no notice in Salyersville.
There are more pressing things to think about. The county where the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway ends is one of the poorest and least educated in Kentucky and the nation. Unemployment is high. Many who work have jobs outside the county.
Todd Preston, who is president of the Magoffin County Historical Society, said the county hasn't grown much over the decades because sizable portions of each generation leave to find work elsewhere.
And there never have been many black people or other minorities in the county, he said.
"I'm touching 80 and have lived here all my life," Preston said. "Even when I was growing up, I seldom saw a black person."
Neighbors help neighbors
Dr. Charles Hardin, the family physician who is the county judge-executive, said the county's lack of diversity should not be taken as an indication of prejudice.
"I've found Magoffin County people to be some of the most open people I've ever dealt with," Hardin said. "I think that anybody who wants to come ... and try to work and earn a living, they would be welcomed with open arms."
Magoffin County, he said, is the kind of place where neighbor helps neighbor and, despite scarce resources, no one starves if others have food.
Saturday provided an example of what he was talking about. At least half a dozen people stood at intersections in Salyersville, holding plastic buckets and signs asking for contributions to cover the funeral expenses of Hershel "Dick" Bailey, a county constable.
Bailey died in April, but the funeral bill has been more than his widow can pay, said Shannon Risner, Bailey's nephew and one of the collectors.
"They're real good people" in Magoffin, Risner said. "There are a lot of poor people, but they all come together when they're needed."
As he spoke, driver after driver dropped $1 bills or a few coins into his bucket.
Everyone who drove by while a Herald-Leader reporter and photographer stood there was white.
It wasn't surprising.
Among the 13,499 people that the Census Bureau estimated lived in Magoffin County in 2006, it says there were 27 black people, 62 Hispanics and 30 who put down two or more races.
Several Magoffin County residents interviewed last week -- they fell into the categories of white, Hispanic and "two or more" -- expressed surprise that the minority numbers were even that high.
Preston, at the historical society, said he didn't know of any black people in the county.
"If they are, they never are on the street," he said.
Juan Madrigal, who manages Mi Finca, a Mexican restaurant that opened five years ago, estimated that there are, at most, only 15 or 20 Hispanic people in the county.
Children 'love it here'
And Nick Nicholas, whose father is black and mother is white, said he knew of perhaps 15 black or mixed-race people.
Nicholas, 26, attended grade school in Magoffin County, left for a number of years, then returned last Christmas.
As a kid, he said, he was subjected to "smart little remarks" from white children. He said he still feels subtle prejudice -- nothing overt -- from some older adults.
But Nicholas said he and his wife, who is black, have three children in the public schools and another who starts today. For them, it's a different story.
"They love it here," he said. "They don't have any problems in school. It's more like the grown-ups that are stuck in their ways. They're not used to seeing black people around."


I just wanted to say I loved the article because it shows how bad Magoffin really is, although one official claimed it wasnt as bad as it seems. Hes so full of crap too. I have lived here for 25 of my 27 years of my life and I know things are not like he says they are.
When he says that no one starves if others have food, thats crap, neighbors dont help neighbors as much as he says. Also, the part about people coming here to work would be welcomed with open arms, yeah right. Hard to do that when there arent any jobs here besides restaurants and gas stations where u make the minimum. The only jobs that do pay well are hard to get into, unless of course you know someone who knows someone who slept with this one or that one, thats about the only way you get in to those jobs. Actually thats about the only way you can get any job around here. The only place that isnt like that is the call center in town, and the only reason its so easy to get in there is because they cant keep workers because most of the people they hire are either drugheads or drunks and they end up having to let them go as soon as they hire them. I wish other people that had to suffer with living here would have the guts to say what im saying now but they dont. They are all blinded to the truth because they buy all the bull that is spouted about around election time. Face it people, Magoffin County is never going to change. The topic of race interested me as well, because I have only seen maybe 2-3 african americans in this county, one which I went to school with and Im not real sure if they even still live around here. The only other race I have seen around here are Mexican and they are the ones that own the Mi Finca restaurant, and I have not seen anymore than that. I applaud the Lexington Herald Leader for doing this, exposing what magoffin co is really about. Its a white dominated area and always will be as long as the people that run the county continue to do the things they do, and there will never be any jobs here because these elected officials wont allow anyone to make money besides themselves. I remember about 10 years ago, or maybe longer than that, this county had a chance to bring in a WalMart, but do they do it, no, they come up with some lame excuse to turn it down. There is plenty of land around here to have factories and other kinds of jobs for people, but like I said, as long as the rich, land owning people continue to run this place, it will be no more than what it is now. A place filled with crooks, drugheads, drunks, and outlaws, and thats only the county officials side of the spectrum, which in my opinion is the worst of all. We have a pretty decent sheriff here that busts his butt do go out and hunt down all the drug dealers and so on and so forth, but with the legal system instilled in this county, they usually only are in jail for about a night or so then come court time, they are released back into society. Thats about all I can think of for now, but im sure there is more, I just dont feel like sitting here and going through it all. Again, congratulations to the Lexington Herald Leader for the article on Magoofin, im sorry, I mean Magoffin County, one of the two whitest and sorriest places in the nation.