HAMLIN — Cody Lambert edges off the gas on Route 3, east of Hamlin to point out where the Board of Education is building the new Duval Middle School.
The old Duval Middle School had been shut down for a few years, after structural engineers deemed it unsafe. As Lambert recollects it, the school was literally cracking apart.
Since then, kids have been going to the county school board building for instruction — and now they’re building a new $40 million school to serve pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.
Not much changes in Lincoln. Take Duval’s mascot, the Yellow Jackets, for instance. Back in 1914, the school colors were yellow and black — but when the jerseys came, Lambert said they were orange black.
“They just couldn’t call customer service,” Lambert said. “So they were like, ‘well, all right guys, the school colors are orange and black.’”
And that’s the way it’s been for over 100 years.
Back when he was a kid, Lambert, 33, said he recalls seeing a few more machine shops and auto body garages around the county, but for the most part, not much has changed.
Unlike its neighboring counties to the south, Lincoln has never experienced the population boom and subsequent bust seen during the coal rush of the 20th century. At its peak in the 1980s, Lincoln had about 24,000 people living there — today, it’s hovering around 20,000.
Lambert was born and bred in Lincoln County. When popping into various stores and shops, he’s often called “Greg’s son.” His father, a football coach, is known countywide. And Lambert is making a name for himself, coaching a team in Logan County.
But despite the strong family roots, even Lambert has had to move for greener pastures.
“A lot of people from my generation have moved away and not necessarily to other states,” he said. “They’re just not living in Lincoln County. They’re moving to places like Charleston, Barboursville or Huntington. Myself included — I lived most of my post grad life in Huntington.”
How to get people — particularly young people — to stay is one of the questions facing two candidates gunning for the 30th Delegate District in West Virginia, which covers almost the entirety of Lincoln County.
For those who stay in the county, the job prospects are scant, unless they’re willing to drive — usually to a neighboring county. U.S. Census statistics show more than 60% of working people in Lincoln work outside the county. About 20% of them have to drive up to an hour for work.
While the county did experience timber and gas booms through the years, the two largest employers in Lincoln County as of last year are the school board and an in-home care organization for seniors.
Democratic candidate Britney Brogan, a school nurse, said she knows the struggle to stay all too well.
“I went to Marshall for school, and I stayed in Huntington for a very long time,” she said. “But I missed it. It’s where I grew up. I was born and raised here.”
To Brogan, focusing on infrastructure and helping along small establishments is the key to recruiting businesses to Lincoln County.
Over on the Republican side, Jeff Eldridge — who served as a Democrat in the house in the 2000s and the 2010s — said he wants to leverage the county’s natural resources to grow tourism and to beef up infrastructure.
“In 20 years, hopefully with getting infrastructure and tourism up, we’ll get some companies to want to move to Lincoln County,” he said.
When he was previously in the House, he also introduced legislation to create a tax incentive for people who wanted to retire to the county, but it didn’t gain traction. He said he’d look into something similar for young people if he were to come back.
Lydia Roberts, who graduated from Marshall University in 2021, is one of those people who came back home to Lincoln County. She said “roots are strong and important” in the county and a trek last summer on the Appalachian Trail only made her believe that more.
“I never found a city, or a town or a state that I thought we couldn’t hold a candle to,” she said. “They had things that make their community better and we can have that. We have the people and the energy.”
But it’s not without its problems, she said. For instance, when she got bit by a dog a few months ago, she had to drive to Teays Valley to get it checked out because the doctor’s office in Lincoln wasn’t fully staffed. Anywhere — work, grocery store, entertainment — is a drive.
She’s not too optimistic about getting a large company to relocate to the county either.
“We don’t have service and our roads suck,” she said. “Why would they come here when everyone is also leaving?”
Lucas Ashworth, 34, sits in a booth at the M&R Restaurant, a diner between Hamlin and West Hamlin with his brother Jake and Cody Lambert. According to Ashworth, this booth is the same one where Lincoln County legend Chuck Yeager used to sit whenever he’d visit home.
When Ashworth graduated high school, he signed the dotted line with Uncle Sam and went off to see the country. Now, he’s come back to Lincoln County and works as a funeral attendant.
“I decided this is the best place in the world for me,” he said. “There’s no better place. I can walk in here and I have to wave at everybody because I know everybody.”
There’s not a stranger at this diner — in fact, the old owner used to change his and his brother’s diapers way back in the day. He knows the waitress by name, as well as the people eating behind him, beside him and the old timer sitting at the counter.
Ashworth coaches football for one of the local schools and his brother Jake coaches basketball. They sit at the booth along with Lambert and trade gridiron gossip and revel in the glory days when they played on the field.
To Ashworth, the county needs people to stay who are willing to put in the work to “make it what it can be and what it used to be.”
“The best thing the state can do is update the road system,” he said.
That’s something both candidates in the race have hit upon. Brogan said she wants to see the community come out and support startups and small businesses. Eldridge, who said he had a somewhat nasty primary race, said he wants to see the county come together and “quit bad mouthing each other.”
If there’s one thing uniting the country, it’s sports. As Lambee recalls it, things were a bit rocky when four high schools were consolidated into one. Some traditions were lost, like Hamlin High’s practice of guarding the Chuck Yeager statue to prevent a rival from putting their jersey on it.
But it’s the type of county where the towns close down and the cars line the road for Friday night lights — the type of town Ashworth said one can live a good life in.
Ashworth stands up and pays his bill — he’s got to take his kids swimming. The brothers say they plan to stay in Lincoln County.
Lambert isn’t going to be staying for long. He’s got about another year, then he’ll be following his fiancée out of state. But he hopes to come back, maybe to retire.