Tim and Beth Reese

Small Town Champions of West Virginia: Tim and Beth Reese

Building Small Town Resilience in West Virginia


Are America’s small towns in decline? Not if you ask Beth and Tim Reese. They’re part of a powerful revitalization effort in Capon Bridge, West Virginia, a town of 400 nestled on the Cacapon River, at the “Gateway to the Mountains” of Appalachia. The community of Capon Bridge believes that restoring old buildings, rather than tearing them down, attracts young people and new businesses, like the Farmer’s Daughter Market & Butcher serving up “West Virginia’s Finest Finest” including one of America’s best burgers. A son of West Virginia, Tim’s heritage is in coal, but he sees a future “mining West Virginia sun,” and his early investment in solar power is catching on throughout Hampshire County. Though they’ve lived in Capon Bridge for over twenty years, the Reeses still see themselves as newcomers, and they take a community-directed approach to building resilience. 

“In this super polarized world, there’s hope that there are other ways to hold conversations and relate individually with people beyond politics. Talking about your family, talking about music and the arts, talking about growing things. These things are more real than the divisive things set up to create high energy emotions. Those are reasons to hope. If we can turn the conversation away from things that are concocted to try to make us divided and turn the conversation to things that are uniting, we can really get through anything as a country. ”

  • Tim Reese, Possibilitarian

“In this super polarized world, there’s hope that there are other ways to hold conversations and relate individually with people beyond politics. Talking about your family, talking about music and the arts, talking about growing things. These things are more real than the divisive things set up to create high energy emotions. Those are reasons to hope. If we can turn the conversation away from things that are concocted to try to make us divided and turn the conversation to things that are uniting, we can really get through anything as a country. ”

  • Tim Reese, Possibilitarian

“In this super polarized world, there’s hope that there are other ways to hold conversations and relate individually with people beyond politics. Talking about your family, talking about music and the arts, talking about growing things. These things are more real than the divisive things set up to create high energy emotions. Those are reasons to hope. If we can turn the conversation away from things that are concocted to try to make us divided and turn the conversation to things that are uniting, we can really get through anything as a country. ”

  • Tim Reese, Possibilitarian

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Thanks

Hosted and executive-produced by Kate Tucker, Hope Is My Middle Name is a podcast by Consensus Digital Media produced in association with Reasonable Volume.


This episode was produced by Christine Fennessy with editing from Rachel Swaby. Sound design and mixing from Mark Bush. Music from Epidemic Sound, Soundstripe, and Kate Tucker. Big thanks to Conor Gaughan, publisher and CEO of Consensus Digital Media.

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