I”m from Appalachia, and this article is full of crap. Yeah, like everywhere, there are poor people there, but they’re not the Beverly Hillbillies.
What you say reminds me of that movie Fargo. I am from near Fargo myself, and the movie made it look like all North Dakotans were a bunch of clueless, idiot, red neck hillbillies, just like Jed and Granny. It is a bunch of crap, of course.