Walk had no idea how to apply for college or scholarships, so following in his father's footsteps, he took a job with Massey Energy (now Alpha Natural Resources) after high school. He quit six months later. After a year of working at various minimum-wage jobs, he found work as a security guard at a mountaintop removal site. "I felt like the most miserable human being for being part of that."

He says he was the smallest cog in a machine that was destroying his home and killing his people. "The people at the bottom of that mountain were getting sick and dying. That's what really kicked me in the rear end," he says. "I couldn't sit on my hands anymore and let this go on."