A Legacy of Two Cities :

Cesme, Turkey and Wise, Virginia

"The interest in establishing a sister city kinship came into being partly because of the interest and research of former Wise College professor Brent Kennedy and the Melungeon Research Team. Dr. Kennedy's fourteen years of research reveals that Turks, Portuguese, and other people of Mediterranean descent existed in the earliest settlements in the Appalachian mountains of Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, and western North Carolina."