Kinderman, Gibbs,

The Appalachian Volunteers (AV) originated in 1964 when Milton Ogle, a staff member with the Council of the Southern Mountains (CSM), began organizing college students from Berea and other colleges in the region to engage in repair and enrichment projects for substandard schools in eastern Kentucky. They obtained a federal grant that enabled Ogle to hire an assistant, Gibbs Kinderman, and additional staff, expand the program and work with the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). However, when AV staff began to challenge local power structures in the communities where they worked, the CSM director, Perley Ayer, fired Ogle and Kinderman. The Appalachian Volunteers then organized independently, obtaining funding from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) until politicians in Kentucky and West Virginia persuaded OEO to reduce and finally cut off funding. Milton Ogle resigned in 1968, and his replacement, David Walls, announced funding for AV's West Virginia projects would end at the beginning fo 1969; and the organization itself closed down by April 1970. Staff and projects were spun off into other organizations, such as Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (Appalred). Kinderman became director of the Mountaineer Family Health Plan in Raleigh County, WV.