HOST: Gayle Manchin was sworn in Thursday as the federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. As Curtis Tate reports, the wife of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will lead an agency that includes West Virginia and parts of Ohio, Kentucky and 10 other states.

TATE: Gayle Manchin was nominated by President Joe Biden to lead the ARC and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. 

The agency, created in 1965, promotes economic development, workforce training and infrastructure in one of the country’s most impoverished regions.

Among the ARC’s most visible projects: A 3,000 mile system of improved highways across the region. The system was 91% complete as of 2020. 

Manchin, a native of Beckley, West Virginia, was the state’s first lady, president of the state board of education and secretary of education and the arts.

The ARC’s members will include Manchin and governors from the states it represents. The current state co-chair is Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.

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