When I asked June about MIRA she pointed me to a project in a remote part of Perry County, SPiCYAM. This was not a MIRA project but would not have happened unless MIRA had taken place. More precisely, MIRA CSO John Winnenberg, a local consultant with Shawnee Associates and local historian, met Ken Dobo, from Athens at the summer 2000 celebration that Kellogg organized in Michigan. "After a couple of hours discussion during the party, and six months of organizing after that we had a project underway," said Ken. I visited Ken near the campus of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Ken runs the Appalachian Media Access Center (AMAC) that does training and loans video equipment to local folks who want to put an event or creative effort on the local public access channel. AMAC is located in a comfortable old building in the heart of Athens. Amy Borgstrom had told Ken about the MIRA grant, and AMAC became another CSO that was funded. Ken said the MIRA project was "a shot in the arm." AMAC does not have the resources to raise money which meant that he preferred to concentrate on the program and technical aspects of the work rather than the funding to continue it. Some of their money comes from the cable company which is now no more than a fiber optic hub and one government channel. There is no physical presence in Athens as there was in the old days. Ken used some of the MIRA money to upgrade equipment. They had been teaching newcomers, and he wanted AMAC to be the place where more advanced training and equipment would be available to organizations with some money. "We want to show that you can make a good video for a reasonable amount; you don't need $100,000." At the Athens Film Festival currently under way, an environmental group was hoping to present their video which cost less than $10,000. AMAC has digital video cameras, various video editing programs for both amateurs and experts who use both Windows and Macintosh. Some services are free and others are a real bargain.

When I arrived Ken was hosting some globophobes from Big Noise, an anarchist video group that was tagging along to capture the demonstrations in Quebec and other way stations on the anti-globalization circuit that began in Seattle in December 1999. Ken's interest, though, is primarily local, and he was proud of the assistance his organization was able to render to the new project in Perry County.