The school, one of the largest for mining engineering, will be doling out $US5000 annually for four years to women who are first-generation college students, descendants of coal miners or interested in miners’ health.

The endowment came from the late Ruth St John, who chose to honor her daughter, the late Dr Judith Buff.

Buff's sister Dolly Bromberg told the school that helping coal miners was a family passion.

The girls’ father was a West Virginia cardiologist who studied mining work’s effects, advocated for health and safety laws and coined the term “black lung disease”

The scholarship program has already made its first selection.

Michelle Raney’s great-grandfather was a mine superintendent, her grandfather ran a company store and her father, Bill Raney, heads the West Virginia Coal Association.

In related WVU news, the school announced late last week that it had opened a historical exhibition called Outside the Mine: Daily Life in a Coal Company Camp.

Visitors to the Watts Museum on the school’s campus can explore the lives of miners and their families in the coal towns of Appalachia. The exhibition focuses on four central components: commerce and the company store, religion and faith, domestic work and activities and social time and leisure.

It features historical artifacts and photographs from the days when coal was king, stretching from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries.

“Coal companies built homes, churches, schools and stores in the region’s remote coalfields to attract miners,” curator Danielle Petrak said.

“Although mining operations sustained these towns’ existence, there was more to life in coal camps than laboring underground.”

“Outside the Mine” is on view through July 2014. Admission is free.