The price of coal is soaring. Demand is up. No one could be happier than Greene County's miners, who dig the steady work and fat paychecks. 

WAYNESBURG, Pa. - All night and day, trains rumble through the hills and valleys of Greene County, where coal is king and the rails carry away the crown jewels, 42 million tons of black bituminous a year, now fetching double its price of just two years ago. Waitress Tonya Woodring, 38, pours coffee at Lavern's Place, a breakfast spot for miners coming off the overnight shift.

Taking a break, she lights a cigarette and lists her family's "toys" - all purchased with the $80,000 a year her husband makes working a mandatory six 10-hour days a week in a job that bears little resemblance to the pickax mining of the past.

"There's a truck," Woodring says, then pauses. "Well, two trucks, the four-wheeler, a boat - and we're looking for a new home."

No other county in Pennsylvania produces more coal than Greene, population 39,808, about an hour's drive southwest of Pittsburgh. And few places feel coal's impact like this county, where growing numbers of people thrive on the commodity while the rest struggle in its shadow.

It's a peaceful place where folks talk in a drawl, cows meander through pastures, and posters on store windows advertise a future appearance by a troupe of brawny strongmen testifying to the power of Jesus.

Tranquil on the surface, rural Greene County is roiled by global economic forces: factories in China, floods in Australia, the rise of the euro, the fall of the dollar, stunning and disturbing developments in mining technology, discoveries of huge natural-gas reserves, the aging of American baby boomers, and, most important, the skyrocketing price of coal - now about $105 a ton on the spot market.

That's macro.

Gary R. Bowers, president of Producers Supply Co., provides the micro.

"Coal has been our livelihood forever," said Bowers, 38. His father and a grandfather were miners, and now his business in the county seat of Waynesburg supplies mines with everything from pipe valves to black tape.

In 1990, Bowers, who never went to college, got a $6.25-an-hour job behind the counter, the only employee. Three years later, he bought out the owner. Now he employs 18. "We're good," he said, smiling and leaning back in his chair. "We're very good."

Except for those who aren't.

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