Weimin Trinh, a senior citizen with Down syndrome who has been living in West Virginia since her youth, says that West Virginia is the most supportive community among the states she has attended. Although there was one death, at the age of 69, she says she felt accepted. “I found all the people who had lived here for so long and who loved me very much. I knew they would come to know about the special challenges I had and they would support me,” she says. She attributes the support to the fact that she had been accepted at the age of 22, when she was a first-year law student in Charleston, and was married only a short time later. And she admits that she needed to prove her “passions,” although she did not have any. It is the way most people welcome a stranger, says Harnett, that makes West Virginia so special.

Harnett describes West Virginia as one of the states she would most like to visit. She plans a trip to West Virginia for herself and others later this summer, and she would like to go to any place in America where the population is like the rest of the states. “It’s an amazing place to be a human being, and to have someone else be a human being who is like you. That would be such great,” she says. “I’m really just excited about seeing that.”

This story originally appeared in the April 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine. For more great Nature stories, subscribe to National Geographic Magazine today!

“The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was passed following a long-term conversation that began in 1973 with the tragic deaths of the two great horned owls that had been relocated from the Southeast to Mississippi. We have now seen the result in our own backyard,” wrote James L. Evans, the chief biologist of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1980-1986, when it was known as the Endangered Species Act.

“Our decision was made to establish protections for these magnificent species of Owls, and to preserve a key resource of habitat for the survival of these species with which we share this planet.” (National Geographic photo by David McNew)

As this article was originally published on April 10, 2013 and updated in May 2014.