An explosion at the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine on April 5th, 2010, killed twenty-nine miners and left Tim Blake and James Woods as survivors. The dead were Carl Acord, Jason Atkins, Christopher Bell, Gregory Steven Brock, Kenneth Allen Chapman, Robert Clark, Charles Timothy Davis, Cory Davis, Michael Lee Elswick, William Griffith, Steven Harrah, Edward Dean Jones, Richard K. Lane, William Lynch, Joe Marcum, Ronald Lee Maynor, Nicholas Darrell McCroskey, James E. Mooney, Adam Keith Morgan, Rex L. Mullins, Joshua S. Napper, Howard D. “Boone” Payne, Dillard Earl Persinger, Joel R. Price, Gary Quarles, Deward Scott, Grover Dale Skeens, Benny Willingham, and Ricky Workman. It also honors all miners who have suffered injury, illness, or death as a result of working in the coal industry, and presents the loss as part of the human cost West Virginians have paid to power the nation.