On Tuesday, July 1, 2014, Robert Beanblossom and Richard Fauss will present “Time’s Runnin’ Out: A Historical Perspective of a Movie and the Fight Against Southern West Virginia Forest Fires” in the Archives and History Library in the Culture Center in Charleston. The program will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
The documentary Time’s Runnin’ Out was made in 1969 by Wheeling filmmaker Ellis Dungan for the Cooperative Extension Service of the West Virginia Center for Appalachian Studies and Development and the Division of Forestry of the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. Scholars and educators with the cooperative extension service thought that a well-made film might be able to lower the number of forest fires in southern West Virginia.
As a high school student interested in the health of West Virginia’s forest land, Bob Beanblossom showed the movie to youth groups, service clubs and civic organizations as part of the program to bring attention to the harm that forest fires can do to the land and the ecosystem. Beanblossom was able to learn the background story of this film and how it came to be made by Dungan. Richard Fauss first saw the movie several years after it was made but was immediately impressed by the way it was presented and always remembered the name of the filmmaker who made it. Many years later, Dungan donated his collection to the West Virginia State Archives. Through a study of his collection and his autobiography, Fauss was able to see how some of what Dungan learned in his early career as a feature filmmaker in India translated into his later work as a documentary filmmaker in Wheeling. The approximately 20-minute film Time’s Runnin’ Out will be shown to attendees, and Beanblossom and Fauss will discuss the making and impact of the film.
Mingo County native Robert Beanblossom joined the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry in 1973 as a forest ranger and supervised forest fire control activities in his home county. In 1980 he transferred to DNR’s Parks and Recreation Section as the superintendent of Panther State Forest in McDowell County, where he was charged with the administration of an 8,000 acre state forest. He later was superintendent of Watters Smith Memorial State Park before being promoted in 1989 to regional administrator with supervision of 25 state parks and forests.
Beanblossom is a member of the West Virginia Recreation and Parks Association and a life member of the West Virginia University Forestry Alumni Association. He has held several positions with the Society of American Foresters and has served on the West Virginia Fire Mobilization Advisory Council, the Governor’s Advisory Committee to the State Forester, and the Governor’s Advisory Committee on State-owned Forests. He routinely accepts Incident Management Team assignments and is deployed as a public information officer to critical wildfire situations and other emergencies throughout the United States. Beanblossom edited the 3rd edition of the Histories of the Southeastern State Park Systems (2011) and was presented the Ney C. Landum History Award at the National Association of State Park Directors Conference in Iowa this past September for his effort.
Audio/Moving Images Archivist Richard Fauss has worked at Archives and History since 1982. He is a longtime member of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and a founding member of the group’s Local Television Task Force Steering Committee. He was honored by AMIA in 2002 with its Dan and Kathy Leab Award for service to the archival community.
On July 1, the library will close at 5:00 p.m. and reopen at 5:45 p.m. for participants only. For additional information, call (304) 558-0230.
