 The protest in Pike County by a group of quest energy coal miners protesting over unpaid wages came to an end Wednesday evening. The miners had blocked a coal train from leaving the quest mine near Kemper after the company failed to pay them for several weeks work. I'm joined tonight in the studio by several of those miners and their supporters. Guys, thank you so much for coming by to talk to us. So Wednesday ended a three-day protest there at the quest mine where you guys were asking the company to pay you for several weeks wages. Now the company has admitted that there were some issues that resulted in them getting behind you guys to pay. But it's over with now. You've got your full paydays as of yesterday evening. So how does it feel to finally be off the train tracks? Great. Great. It's a blessing. We were tired and cold, but we needed our money. And we knew that that was the only way to get our money. And I forgot to get you guys to introduce yourself. So why don't you go ahead and tell me your all's names and acquaintances. Okay. I'm Jennifer. This is Brandon Blackburn. This is Dylan Davidson, Justin Hutt, and Dusty Maynard. Okay. So all these guys are either current or former quest energy coal miners. You're here for support of these guys. You guys spent some time together on the tracks out there. So tell me a little bit about what it's like, Dusty. Tell me a little bit about what it was like this week while you guys were out there protesting. She just cold and wet. You know, I know by any means we didn't want to do that, but in order to get paid, it seemed like it's all we had left to do. I mean, you know, one day late, three days late, a week late, and you get two and three weeks late. That's pretty rough, especially when, you know, most people are on a payday to payday basis, either each week or bi-weekly, you know. So it is pretty rough, and I mean, I hated to do that. Didn't want to do that, but I had to get paid. Thankfully we got paid, and I want to thank everybody in the community and everyone that helped us. I mean, I actually want to thank the mines for paying us, you know, but I hope that we can get all this behind us. Go back to work. Yeah. Yeah. Back to work like this never happened, because like Dusty said, we didn't want to do this. We just wanted what was rightfully ours, that we'd work between two rocks to provide for our families, you know, because at the end of the day, every man here standing, they don't go there because they want to. They don't go there because they have to. They go there because they want to make a living in eastern Kentucky to support their families, and that's the best-paying job that most of us know how to do. But, you know, we just wanted, we didn't want no handouts from nobody. We wanted what we was rightfully entitled to, because, you know, every man here in this room is proud to work in the mines because it is a dying industry. And, you know, this generation standing out here in this building is probably going to be the last generation of real coal miners because these companies don't want to teach nobody nothing. And after we're gone, I don't know what the other generation's going to do, but it makes me proud to be able to say that I worked in these hills for 15 years. And in that 15 years, I have never, never even thought about it. I've been doing something like this to get paid, my pay days was maybe one or two days late, but never three weeks late. Let's talk a little bit about what it was like yesterday whenever those pay days finally came through. Jennifer, tell me a little bit about where you guys were sitting around waiting for that money to finally be deposited into your account, and then all of a sudden it's there. What was that like? Everybody kept checking. And the Paycheck Stub app is entirely different than what the bank account is. Everyman's paid direct deposit. The Paycheck Stub's hit within 20 or 30 minutes, you know, after we were told that we would get paid. But it was hours later, and, you know, that's probably not their fault, but it was like hours later, everybody kept checking and checking, which we get text messages when ours hits, you know, our banking app texts us. But ours hit first, and then a little bit later, somebody else's hit, and then, you know, it was just spaced out. Right when ours hit, I thought, okay, everybody else is going to get it. So we started doing little things to clean up. And, you know, we had people in the community that was helping us. Stacey and Lisa Hunt from that area, they were wonderful. They came and helped us clean everything up and get everything up. We had support from, I mean, it's unreal the people we had support from. You know, we had Glenn Martin Hammond. He provided us with tents and seeing that we had plenty of food and, you know, drinks and anything that we needed. I think Ray Jones, I think it was Ray Jones that sent us a porta potty. Matt Reynolds was there every day. Eugene Sisko. Eugene Sisko. When those men came at me yesterday, Eugene Sisko was up front and center. I mean, you know, prayed with us. And, you know, just, we had support from people from other states. And you don't realize how blessed you are until you're in this situation because, you know, most of these people we didn't even know until this. And, you know, we appreciate everything, especially the prayers, because that's what brought us through it. Dusty, I'm going to, I'll ask you this question and then we'll kind of wrap it up here. Look forward a little bit past this situation. What are you guys going to do now because you've expressed to me at different times that you were concerned about whether or not you'd have a job at Quest after all this was over with. Just kind of take me into the future if you can and just kind of tell me what do you think is in the future for you and your fellow miners here? Well, I've spent my whole career as a co-miner and I would love to finish my career as a co-miner. As far as looking into the future, I don't have a crystal ball. So I don't, I really don't know, I guess, have to take it one day at a time and see how it plays out. I mean, you know, I was even concerned about maybe even being black balls from all minds because of this, but I mean, it's stressful times because even though we've gotten paid just like being able to go back to work, I don't, you know, I'm under the assumption that Mark Jensen said that, you know, we're going to put all this behind us that nobody's lost their job. You can come back without prejudice. That's what we were told. But they can say anything when you go back. How do you know how you're going to be treated, you know? That's going to be probably just as if not more stressful than getting our pay. I guess it's going to be a long road. I think I speak for all of our folks out there that are watching. We wish you guys the best and we're glad that you guys got paid and you've got a lot of people that have been praying for you. I'm sure that they'll be happy to continue praying for you and I want to thank you for joining us today in the mountaintop studios to come in and talk to me and kind of take me through a little bit about what happened yesterday. Now, that train that was famously blocked by this group of miners remains at the quest energy mine in Pike County right now. CSX indicated that they planned to move it out either Thursday evening or soon thereafter. Thank you.