Up in the hills of Dickenson County, where stories travel faster than a coal truck on a downgrade, a nickname was born the old-fashioned way: in conversation, not in a press release.
It happened in Haysi, over coffee and quiet frustration, when a retired U.M.W.A. miner was talking about folks needing help. Benefits questions. Federal paperwork. The kind of everyday matters that don’t make headlines but sure do make life harder when nobody shows up. He leaned back, shook his head, and said trying to get ahold of Congressman Morgan Griffith was harder than finding the Woodbooger itself.
Now for the uninitiated, the Woodbooger ain’t some fancy political term. Around Southwest Virginia, that’s our mountain name for Bigfoot. A creature folks swear they’ve seen, heard, or ‘maybe’ caught on camera a time or two, but never quite pinned down in person.
And just like that, the comparison stuck.
“You hear rumors about sightings,” the miner joked. “And the occasional picture of the Congressman. But Griffith remains as elusive as the Woodbooger.”
It wasn’t said with meanness. It was said with that dry Appalachian humor that cuts cleaner than a campaign ad. The kind of humor born from long drives to offices, unanswered questions, and the feeling that Washington is a long way from Haysi, even when you’ve technically got representation.
In coal country, names usually come from something earned. A man who shows up gets called dependable. A man who listens gets called neighborly. But a man folks can’t seem to find?
Well, the mountains handle that in their own way.
They give him a legendary nickname.
And somewhere between the courthouse steps, the union halls, and the diner booths of Dickenson County, Congressman Morgan ‘Woodbooger’ Griffith didn’t just get a nickname.
He got a folklore status.
Not quite seen. Occasionally spotted. Frequently discussed.
And, according to one retired miner, about as easy to locate in person as the Woodbooger itself.
