Remembering Former Mine Workers President Sam Church

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/15/remembering-former-mine-workers-president-sam-church/



Former Mine Workers (UMWA) President Sam Church, 72, died yesterday in Bristol, Va.

Church, who first entered the mines in 1965, served as UMWA president from 1979 to 1982. He also served as UMWA vice president and in several local and district offices.

Says AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who succeeded Church:

Sam was a good friend and a good labor leader. He was a union man from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He will be greatly missed.


After leaving office, Church returned to work in the mines. Current UMWA President Cecil Roberts says Church’s dedication to the union and working families “never wavered.”

Sam did not stop being a leader in our union once he was no longer president. He continued to remain active in the affairs of the union, particularly with respect to our political and legislative activities in Virginia.

He is survived by his wife, Patti, and a son, Nathaniel.

I went to school with his "nephew" (in southwest Va, you call your parent's close friends 'Aunt' and 'Uncle') and spent a lot of weekends at Sam's place on Holston Lake. He was always pulling a prank on _someone_.

BTW, that's a cool forum handle, EBM. It took me a few minutes to remember where I'd heard that before. :headbang:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb-Nacm-pKc

About 45 minutes southeast of Thibodeaux, Louisiana
Lived a man named Doc Milsap and his pretty wife Hanna
hey raised up a son who could eat up his weight in groceries,
Named him after a man of the cloth,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7GyLr7Cz2g">Called him Amos Moses

:toast:

:fistbump: