West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. Have you ever heard the song, Blue Moon of Kentucky? Its pretty well-known and popular. He married Elizabeth Smith, who carried a recessive gene for a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which gives those who have it blue-toned skin, even though they are otherwise perfectly healthy. We do not feel less-fortunate. One of the supermarket tabloids once sent a reporter to find out about the blue people, and she was distressed with his preoccupation with intermarriages. The 76-year-old diva used the less than divine choice of words for the Mountain State in a Twitter against Sen. Joe Manchin torpedoing President Biden's multitrillion-dollar spending plans. 702 ft (214 m) Time zone: UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) Summer : UTC-4 (EDT) GNIS ID: 1549599: Blue is an unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia, United States. From California herself, the informant was very curious to hear about what the people of West Virginia were like. All them old fellers way back then was blue. score: 5 of 27 (18%) required scores: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. 2022 Science Classroom Teacher Resources. If youre analyzing smaller cities in West Virginia with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". One day, one of the older mountain men cornered the doctor. The 2010 survey revealed that there were 1,852,994 people living in West Virginia, which represented a modest rise of just 2.5% on the numbers declared at the 2000 census. They sing in the Stacy Family Gospel Band and have provided their children with a beautiful home and a menagerie of pets, including horses. Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. Within a few minutes. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. Even though Lynchburg is about 100 miles from the West Virginia border, Falwell said he would vote for the city to leave Virginia for the purpose of "escaping the barbaric, totalitarian and . All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. 5,600 views made by Rocco. Blow your mind. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. She shuns modern conveniences. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. Normally diaphorase converts methemoglobin back to hemoglobin. And a sense that President . Settling in the remote hills of Kentucky, there werent a lot of other people nearby, and marrying people who were closely related became common among the Fugates. They lived in isolation and married the girl next door, even if they had the same last name, and consequently passed the gene on to many generations. It was later discovered ascorbic acid can do this, as well. Typically, the blue is isolated to one part of the body. Why can colloidal silver turn your skin blue? They have the 2nd most bars and the 2nd most trailer/mobile home parks per capita in the state. Dern it, Princeton. The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible West Virginia Mountains Fall Foliage The Mountain Spruce Fall Colors Beautiful Pictures This results in brown blood giving Caucasian patients a bluish hue to their skin. Over time, fewer and fewer babies were born blue, and those who were took a methylene blue pill once a day to put the pink back in their cheeks. Besides the number of bars, mobile home parks and places to buy shotguns, its at the base of the hills, where you know the deer and turkey probably walk right into town. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Many is more accurate since the practice is legal, or legal under certain circumstances, in more than 20 states. Blood is also likely to be a chocolate brown color instead of bright red in patients with methemoglobinemia. Blah. Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3','ezslot_0',606,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3-0');Using that criteria, its not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in West Virginia, and then put out a list. Luna was bluish all over. Blue Man Group will rock your world. The only real picture is of a man who turned himself blue by eating silver. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. And they married the people who lived closest to them, the Combses, Smiths, Ritchies, and Stacys. No mention of his skin color is made in the early histories of the area, but family lore has it that Martin himself was blue. the mans picture at the bottom got his unusual color from taking silver nitrate which will turn anyone blue if it is taken over a long period of time. In alphabetical order, these counties are: Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Braxton, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Marshall, Mason, McDowell, Mercer, Mineral, Mingo, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Ohio, 3. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the West Virginia Blue People, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. Luke was just as blue as Lake Louise on a cool summer day, doctor Charles H. Behlen II told the Tri-City Herald in 1974. Born Jan. 16, 1869, in Marion County, Ephraim Franklin Morgan went on to become one of West Virginia's governors. Got a question about todays news? What Happened to the Blue People? As scientists discovered in the 1960s, the mutation that causes the Smurf-like skin is carried by a recessive gene, and it takes two people with that same gene to produce a blue child. This is redneck wonderland. The Wilson Family of West Virginia. The blue Fugates who did not wish to remain blue continued to take the pills, and contacted Dr. Cawein and other doctors to get more of them when needed. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. Research on intrafamilial marriage in such enclaves is slim. "They vary in color from white to black, often have blue eyes and straight hair, and they are generally industrious. 10,000 BC: Paleo-Indian Era (Stone Age culture) the earliest human inhabitants of America who lived in caves and were Nomadic hunters of large game including the Great Mammoth and giant bison. Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. Note: In this instance the reason for cyanosis was not methemoglobinemia but Rh incompatibility. It was painful. The famous painting of the blue Fugates is not based on an actual family photograph, but was a composite illustration created by artist Walt Spitzmiller for a 1982 magazine article. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. "I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' Well, there are more intriguing blue things in Kentucky than just the moon. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. There are still blue people around today, but some of them developed their blueness from ingesting colloidal silver. If the condition were inherited as a recessive trait, it would appear most often in an inbred line. the blue color was gone from their skin, the doctor said. The distinct gold-and-blue color scheme and Flying WV logo we've come to adore did not exist at that point. The Registered Agent on file for this company is Mikeooney. Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is: A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.. Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. They were delighted.". As three bald and blue men explore our world, together we'll discover music, laughter and surprises at every turn. While in the hills, Cawein drove over to see Zach (Big Man) Fugate, the 76-year-old patriarch of the clan on Troublesome Creek. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. Population: 5,191High school graduation rate: 70%Walmart rank: 4thDive bars and mobile home parks: 7th. Cawein and his colleagues published their research on hereditary diaphorase deficiency in the Archives of Internal Medicine (April, 1964) in 1964. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. Most lived to their 80s and 90s without serious illness associated with the skin discoloration. It would be hard to doubt this gracious man except that you cant find another person who knew Luna who doesnt remember her as being blue. Everyone knew the blue Fugates were healthy people. This is a map of the Appalachian mountains Source: Encyclopedia Britannica As you can see, they start in northern Georgia, continuing through most of the Eastern seaboard all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada. Methemoglobinemia is one of the rare genetic conditions that's treatable with a simple pill. Just like the Alaskans, their blood had accumulated so much of the blue molecule that it over- whelmed the red of normal hcmoglobin that shows through as pink in the skin of most Caucasians. 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