Blue Ridge Job Corps Admissions Manager Heather Goodpasture continues to defy instructions to keep quiet and provides updates on Department of Labor orders to shut down the Job Corps. The shut down is under a restraining order, due in part because of the public backlash, and is set for a hearing on June 17 in a federal court. The decision will affect nearly 100 Job Corps programs nationwide.

This interview contains part of a previous interview that details the mission of the program for educating and training at-risk students.

At this writing, the website for the Job Corps remains active.

https://blueridge.jobcorps.gov/

Heather Goodpasture, Admissions Manager of Marion, Virginia's Blue Ridge Job Corps has gotten notice that she is losing her job and that 90 students at the Job Corps will be turned out of their living quarters. Goodpasture is ignoring instructions not to speak to the media and wants people to know the benefits of the program to individual students and to the community.

IN 2023, Southwest Virginia author Barbara Kingsolver won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Demon Copperhead. In this interview, you'll hear how the title character reflects the challenges of drug addiction in his family and in his own life. The boy is loveable and resilient with a grand dream to see the ocean.

Barbara talks about how many of the region's challenges were pressed upon the area by external forces and reminds us that addiction is a disease -- and not a moral failing. And she announces her plan for giving back to Lee County and addressing a need that , had it been met in the world of fiction, could have changed the trajectory of Demon Copperhead's life. Details here: https://hgwrr.org/

How is Barbara using the power of writing in the face of today's challenges to education and health care? What are her plans for another book? A movie? And what's the latest with her family?