 This trustee August is hotter than ever at Appalachian Wireless, as they are slashing all normal contract pricing on all smartphones by 50% when you sign up for service. Better service, bigger saving, serving you for the last 25 years at Appalachian Wireless. Employers and small business owners looking to get a leg up were treated to a room full of resources today at the Big Sandy Small Business Expo here at the Wilkinson Stumbo Convention Center in Geniwally State Resort Park. Now today's event featured more than two dozen governmental and non-profit groups, all with opportunities and resources available for small business owners. This is actually a collaboration among partners with the Regional Employer Services team. And we have several partners like MACED, Big Sandy AD, Office of Employment Training, Tech Cure Center. But anyway, we wanted to do something for the small businesses in our areas because we know that people are struggling with the decline in the coal business. Building new small businesses is an important part of the SOAR Initiative and events like today help those small businesses create new jobs in the region. So our mission is to create economic opportunity in Eastern Kentucky or Appalachian Kentucky. One way of doing that is through small business ownership and not only small business ownership which we have a lot of in the region, but in a time when the coal industry is declining, it's a time for business owners to become innovative and think about new markets. And by new markets we think about exporting goods, we think about e-commerce, we think about building online websites, selling to people from outside the region. And they've brought people together here today, lots of non-profits and government agencies that can support, help pay to build a website for you, help buy equipment, subsidize training for employees, access to capital and loans. So these are the people that can help our small business owners grow their business which creates jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Today's Small Business Expo highlights the tremendous amount of resources located in the region for new small businesses. Reporting from Prestonsburg, for EKB News, I'm Jackson Ladder.