By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Dowagiac Daily News
EDWARDSBURG – He entered the dark classroom with only the light on his helmet.
"Coffee" the Coal Miner, also known as Jerry Burkhart and second grader Marco Perez's grandfather, was a special guest to Leigh Goyings second grade class at Eagle Lake School Wednesday.
Perez, 7, invited his grandfather, who was in town from Charleston, W. Va., for the Thanksgiving holiday, to talk about his work in the coal mines.
"It's a dangerous job," Coffee explained, but added in his 30 years underground, he only received a crook in one finger from his job.
"It's not pick and shovels," he explained, they use heavy equipment to mine the coal. They lay track and are electricians and mechanics, along with being miners."
They are the highest paid industrial workers in the United States, he said, and told students they would need a high school education to become a miner.
"I have been down 15 feet," he said.
A DVD he brought helped show how the coal is transported in shuttle cars and placed on belts.
Diamond bits are used to ground down the coal to a powder to produce electricity in power plants.
He showed the students his kit, which beeped if the dangerous methane gas is present.
"You can't see or smell it," he added.
As a foreman, it was his job to check for the presence of gas.
He also checks timbers for warning signs the roof may be caving in.
"You have to stay alert. I have always brought my men out," he added.
"West Virginia has the best coal in the world," he said, adding, there are 54 billion tons left in West Virginia to mine, or "100 years of work left."
Fifty percent of Americans get electricity from coal.
Coal is also used to make medicine, paint, fertilizer and plastics, he said, among other things.
The children questioned where he ate lunch and he explained he goes down for 10 hours at a time and brings lunch with him.
The light on his helmet is the "only lighting we have," he added.
The battery lasts for 16 hours and there are two bulbs.
Without the lights, they couldn't move in the deep darkness.
Along with a large piece of coal he brought for the teacher, Coffee had his grandson hand out bags with a small lump for each, but not because they had been naughty.
He took a few years off to try mining copper and gold in Arizona and, in Wyoming, trona, a white mineral used by Arm and Hammer in its products.
He also lived in the South Bend, Ind, area a while working for Hickey Homes.
For 16 years, he has also been a professional comic, performing the Kidwest.
Marco and Kimberly (Burkhart) Perez are Marco's parents.