12/09/2025
A Spark in the Hills: What I Did Not Expect to Find in Eastern Kentucky
Earlier this week, I received a message from an eastern Kentucky actress named Ebie Adkins. I had never met her and did not know the work she had been doing in Menifee County. She told me she was involved in a project called Gone and asked if I might be interested in talking about it. We spoke for a while that afternoon. She described the filming process, the locations they used, and the way the community had come together around the effort. I listened with interest, but without any real understanding of what the finished project looked like.
Before we ended the conversation, she sent me a YouTube link to the series. I thanked her and told her I would watch it when the house settled down for the night.
Later that evening, after the kids were asleep and the quiet returned, I opened the link and pressed play. I fully expected to watch a few minutes, get a sense of the idea, and then move on with my evening.
Instead, the first scene held me still.
A line of hills stretched across the screen in a way that felt familiar. The light in the trees looked like the mornings I grew up around. It was not the exact place I knew, but it carried the same air, the same softness, the same shape of home. I recognized the land before I recognized the story, and that surprised me enough to keep watching.
As I continued through the episodes, I began to understand the scale of what she had described earlier. Nearly ninety percent of Gone was filmed in Menifee County. When they needed a cabin, a family offered one. When they needed woods for a tense scene or a quiet place for controlled gunfire or a small explosion, a neighbor stepped forward. Families opened their porches, barns, fields, and hollers, many of which had been in their families for generations. They offered these spaces freely because they wanted to help something creative take root here.
During our conversation she had joked, They had fourteen million. We had fourteen. At the time it was a lighthearted remark. After watching the series, the truth inside it settled more deeply. What they lacked in money, they found in the willingness of people who believed the project was worth the effort.
Then I learned something that surprised me even more. Gone won the 2025 Red Letter Award for Best Show. It received recognition on a national stage, ahead of larger and better funded productions, including Netflix’s The House of David. The director is listed publicly as the winner, and ECHO TV Studios announced the news themselves. For a project filmed on borrowed land with local hands and limited resources, that kind of acknowledgment matters. It tells you the work was seen. It tells you the spark is real.
Ebie herself has been building toward this for years. She earned her Ph.D. in Communication, trained as an actress, and gained experience through film roles, industrial projects, voiceover work, and songwriting. Her first acting and production credit came in 2022. She has been moving forward step by step ever since. Nothing about her journey was instant. Most meaningful things take time.
Gone is not a final product. It is the beginning of something that could grow if people continue to support it. It hints at a future where our region could develop its own creative work, its own opportunities, and its own way of telling stories. It suggests that young people from the mountains might someday find a place in filmmaking or editing or sound or writing without needing to leave the home they love.
Before she reached out, I had no idea any of this was happening. I did not know people were filming in our hills. I did not know families were offering their land. I did not know local residents were stepping into roles and shaping something that would receive recognition beyond Kentucky. I did not know a spark had already been lit.
Now that I do, I can see the meaning in it.
Something real is beginning to grow in this region. It is early and delicate, but it deserves attention. It deserves encouragement. It deserves the chance to become whatever it can become. Any work that strengthens creativity, community, economic opportunity, and draws national eyes to the quiet majesty of these mountains is not something we should overlook.
When the final episode ended, I sat quietly for a moment and felt something I did not expect. I felt hope. Hope for the land. Hope for the people. Hope for what might grow if we treat this beginning with the respect it deserves.
Thank you Dr. Ebie Adkins, for giving our mountains a voice of their own.
~CA
OpEd: The preceding information does not necessarily reflect the views of Appalachia Insider as an organization.
