Holly Lesko pointed me to a small school on the outskirts of Blacksburg. Price's Fork was another example of a small town growing and transforming from a truly rural place into transitional bedroom community. I left Blacksburg early in the morning and ran into bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into town from Price's Fork and beyond. Price's Fork is outside the city limits but is part of the Blacksburg city school district. Dollie Cottrill, a former librarian and now principal of the elementary school, took time between meeting with staff and visits from parents to talk about the MIRA program. While I waited to see her, it was clear to me from just the bulletin boards that great projects were still going on in that small school, long after MIRA had ended. Jenna Swann, a teacher who had won the McGlothlin award for Appalachian teachers who bring the world in to the classroom, hiked in Nepal during fall and winter and kept in contact with all her students by using cybercafes and telecenters along her route. The board displayed her path as well as photographs from the trip.

Cottrill told me, "We are very selective about the grants that we apply for, and this one made a big difference to our community. When we advertised for people who were interested thirty five to forty!" Marcia Smith, the school librarian, ran the CONNCTING program which involved the third graders and elderly members of the Coal Mining Heritage Association of Montgomery County (CMHA). Smith, a librarian originally from North Carolina, took care of the computer networks at the school and agreed to take on the training program for people in the community who wanted to learn to use computers. The school was committed to reaching out to other segments of the town, not just the parents of school age children. The team included Fred Lawson, Robert Freis, a journalist with the Roanoke Times, a middle-school student, parents, and Cottrill. Lawson, in his 80s, was vice-president of the CMHA, and Freis, who had no connection with the coal industry but was an avid historian and tour guide for Civil War battlefields, later became president of the association. The CMHA began as a social group but took on a much greater role in the community as a result of the Connecting project. The third grade students had a unit in class about how to interview people, what sort of questions to have ready, and how to make eye contact. Members of the CMHA were invited to come to the school and meet students in both large and small groups. The sessions were videotaped, and the MIRA group edited the raw footage into a final version. This was shown locally and to the miners who now feel comfortable enough at the school that 2001 was the third year that they have visited to talk with subsequent third grade classes. The annual celebration has also grown, and the field trip to visit the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine in West Virginia has become an important culmination to the study of this area history. However, since the project began several of the members have died. Fred Lawson, 84, on the other hand, has bought a new computer and is using it for Internet-related activities.

Smith said her involvement included the twice-weekly classes which were very time-consuming but rewarding. They had anticipated having eight or nine students but ended up with more than forty and only three computers. She helped Lawson and others with computer purchases and still answers questions by phone from students who were in the MIRA classes. Though her own focus was technical, she said the best part of the project was the connection made between the school and townspeople some of whom had not be in a classroom for more than half a century.