October 16, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Lynette Maselli
304.357.7809
Lynette.Maselli@wvsenate.gov

KESSLER ANNOUNCES SCORE INITIATIVE
CHARLESTON, W.V. Senate President Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall) is calling on residents and
leaders of this great state to envision a revitalized southern West Virginia.
President Kessler announced today he is forming a Senate task force as part of the SCORE
initiative. SCORE, Southern Coalfields Organizing and Revitalizing the Economy, aims to give
southern West Virginia much-needed opportunities to diversify the economy and strengthen our
families and communities.
Southern West Virginia has become a region stricken with a lack of opportunity and hope, says
Kessler. Its time to change our way of thinking so that it can once again become a region that
offers our children and grandchildren opportunities for a better future. It is not impossible to
envision a renewed Southern West Virginia.
SCORE was inspired by Kentuckys SOAR initiative which stands for Shaping our Appalachian
Region. The goal of SOAR is to revitalize Eastern Kentucky, an area facing many of the same
challenges as Southern West Virginia.
Layoffs and mine closings have become almost routine events, says Kessler. This is a time
when communities need and deserve serious attention and action from our government officials.
Its one thing to say that we care about these communities. Its something else to push for a new
way of thinking in order to address the issues facing them.
Topics for consideration by the SCORE initiative include:
Increase funding for tourism advertising and development
Education and workforce development and retraining initiatives
Dedicating monies for viable redevelopment projects
Agribusiness and rural development opportunities
Increase Broadband access
Expanding and supporting intermodal transportation
Explore development of coalbed methane reserves
Support clean coal research and development
The goal of the Senate task force is to enable the region to assess its current challenges, and
gather ideas already underway addressing those challenges. The regions citizens, organizations,
institutions, businesses, and leaders will have a forum for productive discussion, created through
a series of listening sessions. The task force will then take this information and propose
legislation supporting the SCORE initiative during the 2015 legislative session.
Southern West Virginia miners built Americas industrial strength, often sacrificing their health
and even their lives in the process. Southern West Virginia itself paid a steep price for making
America great, and President Kessler believes we cannot abandon the people and places they call
home. Kessler says now is the time to return the southern counties of this great state to the glory
it so greatly deserves.

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Members of the senate task force:
Senate President Jeff Kessler (D-Marshall) Ex-officio
Art Kirkendoll (D-Logan) Co-Chairman
Mike Green (D-Raleigh) Co-Chairman
Clark Barnes (R-Randolph)
Truman Chafin (D-Mingo)
Daniel Hall (D-Wyoming)
Mike Hall (R-Putnam)
Bill Laird (D-Fayette)
Ron Miller (D-Greenbrier)
Bob Plymale (D-Wayne)
Ron Stollings (D-Boone)
Greg Tucker (D-Nicholas)
Chris Walters (R-Kanawha)

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SOAR Kentucky
In early fall of 2013, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and Kentucky 5th District Congressman
Hal Rogers began discussing the possibility of collaborating, across political party lines, to create
an initiative to address the challenges facing Eastern Kentucky. They specifically were not
interested in yet another of the serial task forces, blue ribbon panels or commissions, which have
analyzed and strategized over this region for half a century. Rather, they were considering an
event or initiative that might enable the region to reassess its current challenges, and discuss
ideas or innovations already underway which could be leveraged or aligned to capture emergent
regional development opportunities. But above all else, they hoped to create a neutral venue for
the regions organizations, institutions, businesses, leaders, and citizens to discuss a new
beginning, hope, vision, and collaboration. This venue was created through a series of listening
sessions, designed to collect public input, and a summit at which residents of the region and
leaders, mostly from education and business, gathered ideas and made recommendations across a
number of areas of improvement.
SOARs Mission:
SOARs mission is to expand job creation, enhance regional opportunity, innovation, and
identity, improve the quality of life, and support all those working to achieve these goals in
Appalachian Kentucky.
SOARs Vision:
An Appalachian Kentucky engaged in a landscape-changing enterprise: shaped by a shared and
envisioned future, driven by innovation, entrepreneurship, and a commitment to common
purpose, with improved education, health, and economic outcomes, and expanding opportunities,
for all our regions citizens.
SOARs Values:
SOAR is a widely-shared enterprise. Our commitment to build greater prosperity, resilience, and
equity in the region is posited upon a belief that support for, and strengthened partnerships
among, those already working to achieve these goals is the wisest course. Our trust rests in the
regions greatest assets, upon which this future will be built: its people, places, and heritage, and
in these mountains we call home.
SOARs Goals and Strategies:
The goals and strategies will be determined by the Executive Board, from priorities submitted by
the SOAR Working Groups, for the 2015 Program of Work consideration.