Tom and Pat Gish are owners of the Mountain Eagle at Whitesburg, which they purchased 30 years ago. They are both graduates of the University of Kentucky; Tom is a native of Letcher County. Pat is a former reporter for the Lexington Leader; Tom is a former Frankfort bureau chief of the United Press International and president of the Capitol Press Club. The Mountain Eagle, under Gish influence, provides a powerful editorial voice in Letcher County and eastern Kentucky, which aims to attack wrongdoing by the Letcher County Fiscal Court, local school board, state and local officials, and the strip-mining industry. The newspaper offices were burned in 1974 in a deliberately-set fire; the newspaper continued from the Gish home. The crusading newspaper has attracted international attention, received an award from the University of Kentucky, and received recognition from National Press Club. Tom Gish received the John Peter Zenger Award for freedom of the press in 1975 and was named Kentucky’s public citizen of the year in 1978 by the Kentucky chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Pat Gish served as director of the Eastern Kentucky Housing Development Corporation.