Students from across Kentucky braved snow, icy roads, fallen power lines - and no cell phone service across western Kentucky - to come to the Sierra Club's annual Activist Weekend at the Kentucky Leadership Center in Jabez, KY.

Sierra Club leaders wanted to focus this year's program on student activism, because there are so many great young leaders now in the Mountaintop Removal campaign and they have such good positive energy and momentum.

Most of the presenters came from Mountain Justice, SEAC and the UK Green Thumb student group. Speakers included MJ member Emily Pollom of Murray State, who talked about MTR and the Endangered Species Act; Scott Beckmeyer of UK who taught how to make stencils ("Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie") Dana Kuhnline of the Alliance for Appalachia, who spoke on anti-oppression and helped pull the whole weekend together with a session on how Sierra Club and students can work together; Danny Chiotos of SEAC who spoke on Green Jobs; Emily Gillespie of WKU who was scheduled to speak on Kentucky Student Activism.

Angie Armstrong of Union College and Doc were the Keynote speakers Saturday night after dinner - they talked about the MJ clown rally when the Ku Klux Klan came to Knoxville in 2006 - Angie showed her short documentary film and this was a highlight of the weekend - plus there was a cave trip, 5K run, bonfire, and rowdy mountain music by the Mountain Justice house band Heres to the Long Haul.

It seemed like lots of good connections were made between students and Sierra Club and upcoming events like Powershift and the Mountain Justice Spring Break and the Summer Training Camp were promoted.

Following the weekend, the Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter Executive Committee was so impressed with the quality of the young people who are leading these campaigns that they voted to be a $500 sponsor of the Mountain Justice Summer training camp in Harlan County this spring.

It was a great weekend full of activity (until 3:30 am on Friday night) and everything went well; a very positive event - Kentuckians are looking forward to Mountain Justice and Kentucky Sierra Club cooperating on many future events.