HINDMAN -- While a student at the University of Cincinnati in the 1970s, Mike Mullins picked up a newspaper one day and learned that his next-door neighbor had apparently jumped nine stories to his death the night before.

Within 24 hours of completing his final exams, the 23-year-old from Floyd County headed home for good.

"I didn't want to be in a place where something like this could happen a wall away and I didn't know about it," Mullins said.

Upon his return, Mullins began working as an educator to improve and draw together the mountain communities where he grew up. He took over the Hindman Settlement School in 1977.

The former boarding school, which was searching for a new role in Knott County, soon sent art and music teachers into local schools and tutors into homes in hollows. The successful programs established Mullins as an innovative mountain leader.

Now, as the settlement school enters the 1990s, Mullins is embarking on his most ambitious project yet -- Eastern Kentucky's first full-time school for dyslexics.

So far, it hasn't been easy.

The school, known as the East Kentucky Tutorial Program, remains $40,000 short of its $300,000 construction cost and does not have a builder.

The settlement school draws most of its money from an endowment, private foundations and contributions. But raising money in Knott County, where local officials estimate unemployment is 20 percent, is tough.

Some of the school's unusual specifications for dyslexics also have frightened off local contractors, Mullins said.

The school will help children with dyslexia, a perception-related learning disability that public schools in the region do not have the resources to handle, said Mullins.

Despite recent setbacks, Mullins expects the school to open in the fall and accommodate 20 to 25 first through eighth graders. He hopes to have about 100 students eventually. Mullins' many supporters are optimistic.

"He's a catalyst," said Lois Weinberg, who has worked with dyslexic students in the region for the last ten years. Weinberg is also the daughter of former Gov. Bert T. Combs.

"This guy is a doer," said John Bryden, of New York's Steele-Reese Foundation, which has funded settlement school projects in the past.

Friends attribute the school's success to Mullin's aggressive, energetic personality.

A no-nonsense approach

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Mullins asked at the beginning of a recent interview.

It was an uncharacteristically straightforward question for a conversation in the mountains, where people often prefer to chat before getting down to business. But it also is typical of Mullins' style, his friends said.

"He is very direct," said Loyal Jones, who taught Mullins when Mullins was a student at Berea College and now serves as chairman of the settlement school's board of directors.

"He's impatient," said longtime friend Grady Stumbo. "He doesn't want to have five conferences. He wants to find out what the problem is, get out and work."

It was that energy and initiative that convinced the board of directors to bring Mullins to Hindman in 1977.

The school was founded in 1902 at the forks of Troublesome Creek to provide education in the county, where a public school system had not yet formed.

During its heyday in the first half of the century, teachers from Smith, Vassar and Mount Holyoke colleges taught more than a hundred boarding students annually. But as the county school system developed, the settlement school found itself with less of a purpose. In 1979, it ceased to board students.

Mullins speaks candidly when asked about his impact in Hindman.

"The school was at a low point and I recognized the potential," he said. Since his arrival, the school has run a bookmobile and food bank for the county and sponsored performances by ballet companies, folk singers and classical guitarists.

Mullins also said he sometimes felt he received undue attention and attributed much of the school's success to his staff. "I hate to see me getting all this credit," he said.

Mullin's direct leadership style is part of his personality and can occasionally alienate people, some friends say.

"He can be considered brash," said Ron Daley, publisher of the county's Troublesome Creek Times and a former roommate of Mullins at Berea.

Jones said Mullins has become more diplomatic in recent years, especially when dealing with people whose past work he might not approve of. Five years ago, Mullins did not get along with former coal operator-turned-Pike County Judge-Executive Paul Patton, Jones said.

Now, "he says nice things about Paul Patton," Jones said.

Family ties

Mullins draws much of his inspiration from his family. He speaks with both bitterness and admiration about the four years it took his father, Herman Mullins, a former miner, to get compensation from a coal company for black lung disease.

A former Appalachian history teacher at Alice Lloyd College in nearby Pippa Passes, Mullins also has been influenced by the region's history.

On the chestnut plank and mortar walls of his office hang symbols of Eastern Kentucky's past and future.

In one photo, Johnson County land speculator John C.C. Mayo, who bought mineral rights for as little as 50 cents an acre around the turn of the century, sits in a suit and bowler, smoking a cigar at the mouth of a mine.

To the right is a photo of Joe Begley, who successfully campaigned to amend the broad form deed in 1988. Begley wears a work shirt and a smile.

The photograph of Mayo "epitomizes where we lost opportunity for economic development," said Mullins; the photo of Begley, "where we're continuing to try to right that wrong."

Like Mullins, two of his closest friends, Sen. Benny Ray Bailey, D-Hindman, and two-time gubernatorial candidate Stumbo, are also leaders in the region. Together, the three are known as the "Floyd County Mafia."

The expression refers to their roots in the neighboring county, their influence in the region and their longstanding friendship. The three used to play softball together in a local league. Mullins and Stumbo hunt grouse together on weekends.

As Mullins takes on greater tasks, however, he has less time for things like grouse hunting and talks more about his hopes for the future of Eastern Kentucky.

"I want to be remembered as a person who did not exploit this region, but one who tried to do some good," he said.