>> Pike County shooting victims: A closer look at those who died
“We’re not all drug addicts,” said Judy Dixon, 69, as she and a co-worker shared lunch at the Kozy Kitchen in downtown Waverly, which serves hand-cut fries and homemade coleslaw across the street from the historic county courthouse.
It’s hard to find a resident of Piketon or Waverly who hasn’t been interviewed at least once in the past couple weeks. In addition to Ohio media outlets, crews from Dateline and Inside Edition have made the rounds. A British website flew in a reporter from Los Angeles and a photographer from New York to breathlessly report the story.
A copy of the local semi-weekly newspaper, The Pike County NewsWatchman, sat on the café counter with a front-page story quoting high school students struggling to concentrate on statewide testing as a helicopter flies overhead and television news trucks line up outside the school to interview students coming and going.
NewsWatchman Editor Matt Lucas has turned down requests from national media outlets focusing on poverty and drugs. We asked him to talk about the untold story of Pike County.
“I wish the media could focus on the many positive aspects of our community — the most important of which is the many good people here who love and support one another through good and bad times,” he responded.
“Our community has a sense of history and pride in the beautiful land with which we are surrounded and many hard-working people who run small businesses, farm the land, work for other industries, and even drive many miles for a job every day. The people here are the greatest asset we have in Pike County.”
Still, Pike County has its challenges. Twenty-two percent of the county’s residents live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Ohio’s statewide average is 15 percent.
Jobs can be hard to come by. The county’s unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in March. That’s better than several counties in southeast Ohio, but higher than the statewide average of 5.4 percent.
Pike County’s largest employer is a former uranium enrichment plant that is being cleaned up and dismantled with federal funds. An atomic energy symbol still marks the center of the county seal.
And the county has a drug problem. The county’s small population puts its five overdose deaths last year among the worst per-capita in the state, and deaths are up this year.
But residents say these challenges don’t define the region. And Pike County residents are quick to note that drug overdoses and murders are more common in the big cities where these reporters come from.
That’s why Ray Osborne moved back to Pike County after living several years in Phoenix.
“There’s a lot of really good people who live in Pike County,” Osborne said, sitting across from Dixon at the Kozy Kitchen. “(People) still wave at you as you’re driving. I’ll still say ‘hi’ to you, and I don’t even know you.”
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