From yesterday:
Service today for coal country activist
She served as a WAC in World War II, then for 21 years in the Air Force at a time there weren't many women in the service. She retired to her native Harlan County and took up the fight to keep strip mining and other coal-related environmental hazards from happening--or at least from going unnoticed. She fought for the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and became a citizen enforcer, blowing the whistle on spills and the like. She worked so closely with the inspectors from the Office of Surface Mining that some people thought she was a government agent.
Imagine living a life where so much of what you did bettered life for others, really made an impact. Not many of us can say as much, can we?