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This Barbour County native left a lasting mark through decades of poetry, teaching, and service. McKinney’s work often explored nature, family, and Appalachian life, blending emotional and spiritual themes. As director of creative writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College and co-founder of Trellis journal, she nurtured young writers. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow and West Virginia’s poet laureate (1993–2012), her collections—like The Girl with the Stone in Her Lap—remain vital to American literature.
