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MADISON
Asheville Citizen Times
MARSHALL - In the weeks following Tropical Storm Helene's devastation in downtown Marshall, Marshall native Sarah Scully's video documentation of the response in Marshall garnered a lot of interest from Western North Carolina residents.
Now, Scully has teamed with newly formed nonprofit organization WNC Grassroots Media to host a weekly broadcast, WNC Mountain Reporter. The weekly news program will premiere Jan. 21 on WNC Grassroots Media's various social media channels.
Scully is a 1998 Madison High graduate and earned her bachelor's degree in mass communications from UNC Asheville. She said the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were what inspired her to enlist.
During her time in the military from 2003-08, she served in Iraq, Japan, Korea, Kuwait and Thailand, and served as a journalist and magazine and newsletter writer for a number of publications across her tours.
She was also trained at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Scully has amassed quite a following in Madison County but has been inspiring community members throughout WNC for years now.
A survivor of sexual trauma while serving in the U.S. Army, Scully suffered from PTSD as a result of her military sexual trauma.
"You kind of lose your voice," Scully said. "And it's weird - the trauma brought it back. I realized that my world had gotten very narrow, and I needed to open it back up and live again, and not be afraid all the time."
Scully has been in therapy since 2016 working through her trauma. Her husband, Donovan, told her that "everything she's been working for prepared her" for that moment of being down in Marshall and being able to document the damage, but also the rebuild.
Scully said she hadn't done any journalism work since 2008, when she got out of the U.S. Army.
While being in downtown Marshall amid the wreckage was challenging at times, Scully admits, it also helped her in her personal growth.
"Everywhere I looked, it was just trauma and destruction," she said. "Then, the military showed up, and for someone who's got MST, that was a hard one. But it was actually really healing too, because I get to show it's OK, and I embrace it.
"It was great, actually, to have that nonstop exposure therapy of being downtown, and then not feeling helpless and hopeless, but being able to give back. I just wanted to help."
WNC Mountain Reporter
WNC Grassroots Media was formed Oct. 1 by Alyson Wade, owner of The Farm Connection; Nica Rabinowitz, of Fiberhouse Collective; and Tyler Rumsey, operator of Madco Drone Co.
The organization helped raise money for local farmers impacted by Helene, as well as equipment operators who assisted with the cleanup in downtown Marshall.
According to Scully, Rumsey and she have brainstormed on the format for the show, in which they aim to bring "no politics and no divisive, conflict-based reporting."
"Really, it belongs to the people, is what we're hoping for," Scully said. "One of the reasons we love 'Mountain Reporter' for the name is because, to me, it's citizen journalism. It's the same philosophy as the 'grassroots' part. It comes from the people. It's what they care about, and what's important to them."
The format will be a roughly 10-minute broadcast, with a main story consisting of Scully in the field interviewing residents, and other stories involving the arts, schools and sports. Borrowing from Jon Stewart, Scully said she's also planning to offer a "Moment of Zen" segment to close the show, featuring an "Appalachian Attitude" quote or saying.
In June, she got involved with the Brothers and Sisters Like These veterans writing group. She said she's looking forward to working on a team again with the WNC Mountain Reporter group.
To start, the all-volunteer project will focus on Madison County, with plans to branch out to the rest of WNC in the future.
She spoke Nov. 11 at Asheville's Charles George VA Medical Center Veterans Day ceremony.
Anita Rice Metcalf, who served in the Marine Corps, and Navy veteran Belinda Maupin were in attendance Nov. 11, and at one point Maupin embraced Rice Metcalf as she was moved to tears while listening to Scully address the crowd.
“We came to support her in particular,” said Maupin of Scully. “She’s come so far in her journey to be able to stand here in front of people and speak from her heart about what she went through.”
The three are members of the all-women support group, Veteran Hope.
Also in November, Scully was honored as a semifinalist for Ms. Veteran America, an advocacy and awareness event and movement founded in 2012 encouraging women veterans to uplift each other and find their tribe, according to its website.
While being honored in the competition in Orlando, Scully spoke about the Helene response in Marshall.
Scully said talking about her experience has the power of helping other MST survivors heal.
According to an NBC News report, the Department of Defense estimates that there were around 35,900 cases of sexual assault in 2021 and around 29,000 in 2023.
'Just me, my phone and the people of Marshall'
Scully said her documentation of the Helene response in Madison County initially started as a way to depict the damage to her family members but also raise awareness and bring money to affected businesses and community members.
"It's the people of our community who have worked really hard to survive all of this that's brought around the WNC Mountain Reporter," Scully said. "This is their broadcast. Our broadcast. Our program."
According to the Madison County native, visiting downtown Marshall and doing video documentation of both the damage but the more encouraging aspects, such as the community banding together in the rebuild, was in itself reinvigorating.
"I'd never turned a camera on myself until I came down here, but it really affected me," Scully said.
"I started taking video for friends and family who couldn't come down here, but had memories of the place or were affected by it. I just started rambling and rambling, and then it just sort of got bigger and bigger."
And now, with the first broadcast to take place Jan. 21, the momentum continues to grow for Scully.
While she hasn't let her mind wander to thinking about what role she may play in helping to shape the future, she said she feels the county's resilience and ingenuity affords it the opportunity to build back better than ever.
"I look at what our area is going through as a sort of rebirth in a way," Scully said. "We don't have a choice. We have to keep going. But we can help shape and mold it into beautiful."
To donate to WNC Grassroots Media, visit its website: https://www.wncgrassrootsmedia.org/.