Dewey Houck
RAIL Acting Executive Director & Board President
(540) 344-5750
mullensproject@aol.com

Dewey Houck, RAIL President and acting Executive Director was born in Wyoming County, West Virginia. He left Wyoming County in 1961 to follow a railroad career that ended with retirement in Atlanta, GA in 1990. He and his wife Sheila left Atlanta and moved back to Roanoke, VA to spend their retirement years. In 2001 Dewey returned to Mullens in his home county and volunteered to help local citizens implement a West Virginia University sponsored Community Design Team Plan. Dewey solicited the aid of the AmeriCorps programs to work with volunteers and other agencies to build RAIL into a corporation that has gone far beyond the tasks laid out in the Community Design Team plan.

During the seven and a half years Dewey has volunteered, the efforts of all those responsible for RAIL successes has culminated in prestigious awards in his name. Such as Mullens Area Chamber of Commerce 2001 “Civic Hero of the Year”; Governors Service Award 2005 “Senior Volunteer of the Year in West Virginia”; National Award to 60 People in US by Civic Ventures 2006 “Purpose Prize”; Roanoke Civitan Club 2006 (for work done in WV) 2006 “Good Samaritan Award”. Dewey quickly points out that these honors go to all the people that have worked to better their community through the efforts of the Rural Appalachian Improvement League, Inc.

Click here to read more about Dewey.

Jack Seitz
Consultant

Jack Seitz is a consultant for the Farming for Health and Wealth project. The goal of this project is twofold. First, the project will work with local agriculture to “grow” the number of small scale farms in the area in an effort to diversify the local economy and provide fresh, healthy, local food to the area. In an effort to increase access to this food, and encourage area farmers, the project will also establish a local farmers market in Wyoming County. The final component of the project is to establish a growers co-op for low income families. This co-op will assist families in growing and preserving their own food. This will help offset some of their food budget while giving them healthy food and a sense of empowerment. Jack, a native of Morgantown, WV and graduate of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, has been involved in food security and local farming since 2002 and managed his own for two years 2006-2008.

Katheryn Prussia

Katheryn joined RAIL as a VISTA in August of 2009, and is working on Land Use Planning, to come up with possitive uses for abandoned mine land.