Welcome to Coalwood

A film by Steve Date

Get a DVD for $12 (includes shipping & tax!)

There are two ways to order DVDs:

1. Venmo: my account is:  @Steven-Date

2.  By Check: Go to my CONTACT PAGE and send your name and address and tell me how many DVDs you would like. I will send a return email with my address for you to send a check.

Please make sure you also send me an email with your mailing address. 

(If you’d like to order multiple DVDs, please send me an email for discount pricing.)

T-shirts … only $15! I also have a very limited number of shirts available only in the following sizes:

Medium (men)

Medium (women)

Small (women)

X-Small(women or child)

SPECIAL: DVD + T -shirt for only $22!(includes shipping & tax! All sales are final)

About WELCOME to COALWOOD

20 years after my first visit, Coalwood, West Virginia is still on my mind.

In October of 2005 I traveled to the small coal ming town of Coalwood, West Virginia with a group of fellow teachers from Minneapolis. We went to the October Sky Festival depicted in the Film October Sky and Rocket Boy Homer Hickam’s best selling book called Rocket Boys.

I had read the book and seen the movie, but what I didn’t expect was how much I learned from meeting the real Rocket Boys and many of the residents of this interesting town in a misunderstood part of our country.

That trip affected me so much — on a knowledge and historical level, but more importantly in an emotional way that I hadn’t anticipated. On the plane ride home I began having thoughts about making a documentary film about this place and the people I’d met.  Great idea, right? But there was a problem. I didn’t know anything about filmmaking and didn’t have a video camera.

The short version of the story is that I borrowed a camera and drove back to Coalwood with my daughter the next summer. I began interviewing some of the people I’d met in October. Over the next 3 1/2 years I made 5 more trips to Coalwood, learning a lot about shooting video, interviewing people and telling stories.

I finished Welcome to Coalwood in 2009. It has been well-received by not only Coalwood residents, but people all over Appalachia. West Virginia PBS has shown my film several times over the years. I hope you’ll enjoy my film about the real town that produced the Rocket Boys.