Ike Adams, chronicler of Appalachian culture, dies at 72

Ike Adams

Funeral services were held Wednesday evening for Ike Adams, whose byline was familiar to readers of many newspapers in Appalachian Kentucky and beyond. He died Friday, June 18, at 72, of complications from Parkinson's disease.

Adams often "worked as a grant writer, especially for the Christian Appalachian Project and fundraising events," his widow Loretta wrote in his obituary for The Mountain Eagle in his native Letcher County. He also had been development and marketing executive for the Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises, which serves housing needs in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It's based in Berea, 10 miles east of Paint Lick, where he lived.

Adams' humor-laced newspaper column was usually about the simple treasures of Appalachian culture, such as wildlife, fishing, gardening, heirloom vegetables and storing potatoes. But he also wrote about Appalachian books and good causes, and his long article for FAHE about Appalachian housing in 2001 was produced with the deep knowledge of someone who grew up in the region and had become familiar with the facts and figures needed to get grants.

Reviewing the 2006 novel Dark and Bloody Ground, by Roberta Hayes Webb, Adams wrote, "The reading experience is an emotional roller coaster ride that comes as close to capturing the Appalachian experience as anything I’ve ever read. Readers familiar with and appreciative of our culture will find themselves at home — but do keep a box of tissue handy and be equally prepared to run to wherever you go when you’re terribly frightened."

"Ike loved writing because he loved people," Loretta Adams wrote in what served as his final column. "He felt an intense obligation to the papers and to the folks that followed his columns. He loved writing about his family and friends in eastern Kentucky and growing up on Blair Branch. Those tales were most often filled with humor and love for those mountains and the people who lived there."

Memorial gifts may go to the American Diabetes Association or Hospice Care Plus. Memories and condolences can be posted on his tribute page at www.ramsey-young.com.