CHARLESTON, WV — “Larry Gibson, a vocal opponent of the controversial practice of mountaintop removal mining and organizer of the long-running Mountain Keeper Music Festival, died of an apparent heart attack while working at his cabins on Kayford Mountain, his daughter, Victoria, said Sunday night.
…’When my dad passed away you could still smell the mountain air on him,’ Victoria said. ‘You could still see the dirt underneath his nails and the stains on his hands. He was working.’
‘He lived his life devoted to the mountain.’
Victoria, 24, could recall going with her father as a young child to speak out against mountaintop removal. He was passionate about the subject because it was destroying the home he knew as a child, she said.
‘He had so much fire in his voice,’ she said. ‘He had so much passion. It’d make you shake. He could bring a whole room of people to tears.’”
—Ashley B Craig, Charleston Daily Mail
Thousands mourn Keeper of the Mountain Larry Gibson, and the Appalachians he defended from mountaintop removal
— Jeff Biggers, AlterNet
Remembering the ‘Keeper of the mountains’
— Ken Ward, Jr., Coal Tattoo
