Roy L. Cooke, one of the originalRocket Boys,will help West Virginia University celebrate Miners Day at 7 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Mountainlair Gluck Theatre.

Cooke, president of the Miners Day Memorial Association, will speak about the role that miners have played in America.

The purpose of Miners Day is to honor the miners,he said.Everything we have we grow or mine, so they play a very important role in our state and our country. We owe them a lot for their sacrifices.

Cooke grew up in Coalwood, where his father worked in the mines. In the 1950s, he and his friends at Big Creek High School built and launched homemade rockets and formed the Big Creek Missile Agency. They were known as theRocket Boysmade famous in Homer Hickams book and the 1999 movieOctober Sky.

Cooke is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the American Institute of Banking in Washington, D.C. He served as president of Carolina Domestic Coal and as a managing member of Cooke and Moses.

In addition, he was named a Distinguished West Virginian in 1999 and maintains a wide range of civic and business interests in the Appalachian area.

WVU student and 2006 Mountaineer Idol Kasey Hott will be master of ceremonies for the program. Special coal mining music is planned.

The program is being presented by the WVU Division of Student Affairs and the student chapter of the Society of Mining Engineers.

WVU s event coincides with Miners Day, a state event honoring miners. The state Legislature designated Dec. 6 as Miners Day following an online grassroots petition.

For more information, contact ” Sonja.Wilson@mail.wvu.edu rel=nofollow> Sonja.Wilson@mail.wvu.edu or call the Mountainlair administrative offices at 304-293-2702.

More about Miners Day on the Net: /minersday.org/