e of his Tennessee mountains, York
has made his life purpose to give them "a heap o' larnin'." This he has
continued to do year after year through the York Agricultural School
near Jamestown, Tennessee. Mountain folk call it Jimtown. Now there's a
highway running through the town called York Highway.

Sergeant York likes to sing. He "takened lessons in Byrdstown," and
being especially fond of singing hymns, he acquired the name of "The
Singing Elder." He teaches a Sunday School class and did even before he
went to war. He admits smilingly that his fight with "small politicians"
who wanted to use him and his war record was a worse battle than that of
the Argonne Forest. Alvin York married his childhood sweetheart, Gracie
Williams, upon returning from war, and the Governor of Tennessee
performed the ceremony at Pall Mall where the mountain hero was born. He
is the father of seven children. For some time he served as project
superintendent at a CCC camp in the Tennessee mountains. He is president
emeritus of the school he founded and has written his life's story in a
simple, straightforward way, with never the slightest hint of
boastfulness.

When it came to putting in parts of official records and commendation of
his heroism, Sergeant York did so reluctantly. "But it has to be put in,
I reckon." He finally had to give in.

Sergeant York's achievement, capturing single-handed 132 Germans,
killing 20 others, and destroying 35 machine-gun nests stands
unparalleled.

This tall, red-headed, freckled mountain man says modestly that he
always was a pretty good shot and that he kept in practice by hunting in
the Tennessee mountains, shooting turkeys and going to shooting matches
that required a pretty steady nerve to hit center of a criss-cross mark.

"I'm happiest here in the Valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf," says
the Singing Elder, "here in Fentress County just across the Kentucky
state line, once the happy hunting ground of Creeks and Cherokees. Hit's
the place I love best with my family, my dogs and my gun. Hit's where I
belong."

Looking backward, history shows that mountain men, such as Alvin York,
have always led their countrymen in time of war, as I have pointed out
earlier. In the Civil War the southern highlands sent 180,000 riflemen
to the Union Army. In the Spanish-American War they rushed to the
defense of our country. In the World War, Breathitt County, known for
its fighting blood, had no draft quota,