Ah yep, that's true. West Virginia has coal mines, but the connection isn't as strongly embedded in the national ethos as corn for Nebraska or potatoes for Idaho.
Plus, who wants to be connected to coal mines?
Also, I think a part of the problem is West Virginia's disassociation with other states. Plucky Rhode Island may be smaller in mass and population, but at least it's part of New England. Kentucky is part of the South/Bible Belt. Kansas and Nebraska make up the heartland. West Virginia... is what
IS WHAT
Kentucky actually has the exact same problem. Before 1860 it was clearly part of the South and it's below the Mason-Dixon line. But then those states didn't secede (at least according to Northern textbooks), so are they still part of the South or what?
However, as is the general rule in the law of contracts, perhaps we should say that this is no one's fault but the people of West Virginia. They voluntarily chose to secede from Virginia, and they should have foreseen that 150 years later it would leave their descendants in limbo without a region to be connected to in the national ethos.
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your 7 time champion, Link.