Posts by Olivia Paschal

How an illegal dump in rural Arkansas burned for a year

It was one of the worst “stump dump” fires in modern U.S. history — but local agencies and companies skirted responsibility to put it out.

Your Southern Stories

“It took moving away from the South for me to truly appreciate what it is. I’ve only been away from my home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for 4.5 years now (I moved to Alaska for three years after college, then to NYC for a year, now I’m in Portland, OR), and the list of things I miss is endless. Just to name a few: the smell of rain steaming off hot pavement, cicadas singing on tree trunks, pollution enhanced sunsets. I also have vivid memories of my sister and I roaming around my grandmother’s swampy backyard looking for crawfish, and it being an absolute blast.

I don’t know when I’ll be back, just that I will be back. All Southerners return home eventually, right?”

—Taylor Balkom, Alaska

“My favorite place growing up was the farm my dad was born on in West Virginia. Daisies growing in the fields, swaying with the breeze, are my absolute favorite flower. The daisies always remind me of my grandmother who passed away when I was in 3rd grade … The log cabin, then dilapidated, was where my dad was born. The doctor arrived in his horse drawn carriage and delivered him on Thanksgiving Day, 1944. As an adult I have had opportunities to return to the farm. It seems so different now. The old log cabin is completely gone now. The well has been filled in. The “mountain” to the “BIG rock” turned out to be much smaller than we realized. But I still love daisies because they still remind me of my feisty grandmother. And, honestly, if I listen really close I can still hear the Whiporwill singing as the sun goes down.”

— Annette Ellis, Kentucky