 The 2021 SOAR Summit got underway this morning in Corbyn, Kentucky here at the Corbyn Arena. Politicians and business leaders from all around our state gathered together to see what they could do to help small businesses in our area who may be in need of some assistance. So we've got our big annual SOAR Summit taking place here in Corbyn. We kicked it off today, got started at technically around 8 o'clock this morning. We had all of our exhibitors come in here. The regular programming starts at noon. We've got some speakers breakout session set up for this afternoon. It's a record breaking summit in a lot of ways. We've got more overall registrants than ever before, more first day attendees than ever before, which is fantastic. Setting up for a great reception in downtown Corbyn tonight, more volunteers. So it's just been a really great turnout this year, all things considered. And we feel very fortunate to have the support, really the entire region, to pull something like this off. For those who may not be familiar with SOAR, which stands for Shaping Our Appalachian Region, Paul explains that the organization's primary goal is to help support the local economies of our region that may have suffered as coal industry jobs began to decline. We were an organization to come out of the realization that the coal economy was really never coming back and we were a special regional organization put together by Congressman Hal Rogers and then Governor Steve Beshear to kind of help find that next thing for the region as a whole. The good news is while coal sustained families for generations across the region, we've still got that number one asset, which is the people. Coal would have been nothing without the people to pull it, to use it. We still have those same most critical ingredients. We've just got to figure out what that elsewhere is. And the SOAR Summit is all about coming and talking about what that next step is, having conversations around similar problems and making sure everybody feels like they're on the same one Eastern Kentucky team. Because we can't be going against each other. We've got to be finding ways to work with each other because we've got a lot of work to do, right? And we can't make the job any harder than it's already going to be. Here at Pikeville Medical Center's Heart and Vascular Institute, we have assembled a comprehensive team of cardiac specialists bringing expertise from all regions of the nation and the world. We have coupled that with cutting edge technology, providing them the best equipment and operating rooms available. The result is comprehensive cardiac care for the people of our region that is second to none. The Heart and Vascular Institute at Pikeville Medical Center. Hall says that while there are many different economic obstacles facing our region today, SOAR hopes their annual summit will help to combat them by providing an opportunity for local leaders and business owners to discuss these issues and then collaborate to find solutions. Conversations around specific issues. So today we're going to be talking about continuing to how do we expand remote work gains in Eastern Kentucky. We're going to be talking about solving the nursing shortage that's being felt acutely from health providers all across the region. We're going to be talking about grant funding and how we secure more for the region. We're going to be talking about downtown revitalization and how we continue to win the tourism battle and convince more folks to finish the region. So that's going to be a highlight that we're going to have more people than ever staying in touch with them. The reception this evening is going to be fantastic, an outdoor reception. We really worked on the weather to make sure the weather was going to participate. And then tomorrow just having the congressman, the governor with us, those remarks and everybody kind of talking about just what's all going on in Eastern Kentucky. So we've got a lot of good programming lined up today and more to look out for tomorrow as well. Hall encourages those interested in learning more about SOAR and what they do to support local business to visit their website or reach out to them directly for more information. Our job is to talk about what's working in other places and how we can extend those gains across counties. So that all starts with having a core group of people to say we want to do something but we don't know where to start. Come to us, we can help you get started. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joshua Slum.