Thomas J. Watson Personal Statement
“Beauty will save the world!” Doestovesky’s character, ‘the Idiot,’ threw out his absurd spark of light. Though I was a child who knew nothing of Russian luminaries, if wilderness was the embodiment of Beauty, then this phrase encompassed my being.
The 2008 recession and a failed dream of a community coffee shop left our family with nothing. One day, my father’s face broke into a radiant smile. “We’re moving to the Red River Gorge,” he told us一from the grays of the city to the bright greens of new beginnings. We drove into the gaping mouth of a 300-yard-long sandstone tunnel, and and like story book characters, our lives were forever changed. I became a child enchanted by wilderness. I could examine a single leaf, tracing all its many veins, and never fully plumb the complexity of its depths一to look at more was to risk vertigo. My siblings and I explored for hours.
Before long, we opened a small family cabin business. The beauty of the place became our livelihood, and we never left.
To me, there was nothing more fantastic or valuable than untainted wilderness一but I had no say in what the adults chose to do. In the name of tourism and a livelihood, my family cut a road up the side of the mountain to render the steep land accessible to cabin development. Part of me was plowed over, too, when the white oak fell. Predictably, a few years of rain resulted in a landslide and continual erosion of the soil, a story that has been all too common throughout Appalachia. I became despondent: why care and bear the pain, if I had no voice? I tried to keep my passions hidden in safe vaults where they could not be bulldozed by machines.
Despite my great sadness at the damage to “home,” the natural paradise I had come to cherish, my ecological fascination continued to develop and bloom. Across the street lived Dan Doursin, one of the few snail biologists in the country, as well as a self-taught botanist and former forest service biologist. He took me under his wing and together we spent countless hours marking maps and tromping through forests. My senior year of high school, he asked me to collaborate with him and illustrate his book, Wildflowers and Ferns of the Red River Gorge, since published by the University Press of Kentucky.
The endeavor was extremely arduous, testing the very foundation of our friendship. Over the course of a few months, I completed over a hundred fern illustrations. Like a plant I grew in many dimensions. I learned courage, to dare myself worthy of such an undertaking, I learned persistence when all felt like a waste of time, and I learned relational maturity, transitioning with grace out of the mentorship relationship I had relied on for so long into the next stage as a young adult, sharp and capable in a challenging world. I was now ready to use my voice to defend the area I so loved.
Across Eastern Kentucky, exploitive industries have desolated communities and ecosystems. These industries pull capital out of a region leaving only a fraction of the profit for the people. For a time, these industries provide jobs, but the real dollars go to investors who live far away. What could possibly bring hope to such a situation?
I was a sophomore at Berea College when news hit. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s “well-planned modern Gatlinburg” solution to the economic and environmental woes of eastern Kentucky had won $500,000 from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), with a matching grant from coal severance tax. The location for this tourist extravaganza was not already ravaged coal country, but the Red River Gorge.
My response was one of utter despair. Once again, I felt like a child, victim to the moving gears of untouchable authorities. But this time I knew that it was my responsibility to act upon conviction.
The following summer, in 2021, I took an internship with the Red River Gorge United Foundation. Because the “well planned-modern Gatlinburg project” was proposed as a solution to the “coal collapse” of Eastern Kentucky, we had to propose a water-tight economic alternative in order to effectively resist the official plans. In my research I learned about the destructive effects of the mass-scale commercial-tourism industry一it is a terrible idea for any location. Dispersed tourism, however, provides the needed alternative.
After a long correspondence via letters, Wendell Berry agreed to speak to me this past summer about his experiences protesting the Red River Gorge Dam proposal of the 1960s and 70s, during which time he wrote The Unforeseen Wilderness, arguing for the land to stay unflooded and pristine. “We need the Red River Gorge. Not just as spectacle, but as an example…because we want to know what nature does when she's not interfered with,” he told me. According to Berry, wilderness has much to teach us about flourishing human communities and agricultural ecosystems, which are closely intertwined. His words echoed what I had learned in my work.
Following the model of wilderness ecosystems, dispersed tourism allows local specialties to thrive, nurturing small businesses and regional socio-economic stability. Instead of maximizing traffic in one geographic location, dispersed tourism brings tourists in manageable numbers to an entire region, allowing for the stewardship of land and community.
Yet many people of Eastern Kentucky have utterly lost hope; without hope, there is no future. In the words of 19th-century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language define the limits of my world.” In other words, we are constrained by known possibilities, and our beliefs are informed by our past experiences. Never was this more clear than on the fateful day when I stood on the banks of Troublesome Creek.
For the majority of the summer of 2022, I had worked with the Red River Gorge United Foundation (RRGUF), continuing my work from my internship the previous summer, pursuing lasting solutions for the region. Now, I was at the 45th Appalachian Writers workshop at the Hindman settlement school, honing my writing skills under acclaimed authors. One night, I woke to a knock on the door and an alarmed voice: “You might want to move your car. The building may no longer be safe. Make your own decisions.” I stumbled into the pouring rain to witness Troublesome Creek consume buildings and cars alike. Cars floated by me, and the odor of gasoline weighed heavy in the air from flooded stations. Paul William’s luthier shop, one of Hindman’s few successful small businesses, was completely obliterated. The power of water was the most terrifying sight I have ever beheld. Even if residents had the money, who could dare to rebuild? For many, the flood was the death knell of an already fatal issue.
Being a witness to this terrible event hardened my resolve: despite overwhelming barriers, I must continue to pursue practical hope for this region.
Is it possible to redeem the abused and beaten communities and ecosystems of Eastern Kentucky in the wake of timber, coal, pharmaceuticals, and the great flood? My life experiences一working in a small family business, my passion for botany and biological diversity, and my yearning for healthy communities across Eastern Kentucky一have equipped me with an invaluable map. Dispersed tourism works. Beauty is more than a trivial matter; the care of land and people is an economic necessity.
If the fates of communal and ecological health are bound together, wilderness serves as our essential model. My project is a quest to travel the world to expand the horizons of my being to fathom the practical possibilities of this vision for Eastern Kentucky, and in returning, bear the seeds of hope to a region desperately in need.
This yearning is both a passion and a calling. I desire to see what is possible for my life in the realm of wilderness, education, communal prosperity, and sustainable food systems.
But where does the rubber hit the road? Do these yearnings hold practical significance to my future? Is it possible to live with integrity and generosity in regard to the environment and communities around me?
To explore these questions in my life I must pursue experience, confidence, and credibility. I cannot envision a better way to do so now than to pursue the Watson fellowship. Never have I left the country for this breadth of time. Never have I, or will I otherwise, pursue these passions and questions on an international scale. On multiple levels of analysis, this project presents an enormous lifetime opportunity. The Watson fellowship is a key to a great door of possibility hitherto closed. I believe this fellowship is the needed bridge to transform my life into active passion.