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WCU to celebrate mountain heritage
Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Day is guaranteed to be a blast this year – literally – with two exhibitions of black powder musket shooting scheduled among the day’s activities.
The 32nd edition of WCU’s annual celebration of traditional mountain culture is set for Saturday, Sept. 30, on the WCU campus. Activities around the old Camp Lab School get under way around 8 a.m., and wind down around 5 p.m. Admission to the festival site is free, and activities go on, rain or shine.
As usual, WCU’s Mountain Heritage Center will provide demonstrations and exhibitions of traditional mountain crafts and skills such as basketmaking, blacksmithing and quilting. A writer for Southern Living magazine once referred to Mountain Heritage Day as “an open textbook of Appalachian folk life.”
Pint-sized cloggers are always a crowd favorite at Mountain Heritage Day. The daylong celebration of traditional mountain culture will be held Saturday, Sept. 30, at Western Carolina University and will include demonstrations, music and food and craft vendors. Admission to the event is free.
Visitors to this year’s festival also will find three stages of traditional mountain music and dance, with plenty of clogging, and toe-tapping fiddle and banjo music. One feature this year will be the festival debut of an all-WCU student bluegrass band – Cullowhee Creek. The band will bring its mix of classic and contemporary bluegrass to the Norton Music Stage at 2 p.m.
Children will have an opportunity to learn about mountain culture in the Mountain Heritage Center’s Hands-On Children’s Heritage Area from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. All festival-goers will get a chance to experience a unique American musical tradition when sessions of shape-note singing are held at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The sessions have been a part of Mountain Heritage Day since its beginnings.
This year’s festival also will include exhibitions of the ancient Cherokee game of Indian ball (also known as “stickball”) at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the field located adjacent to the festival arts and crafts midway. Demonstrations of the loading and firing (with blanks only) of a flintlock rifle musket are scheduled for 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. at the same location.
A lineup of more than 150 vendors on the midway will offer handmade items ranging from woodwork and pottery to paintings, clocks and quilts. Two dozen food booths will feature old-fashioned fare such as cider, lemonade, barbecue, Cherokee fry bread, beans and cornbread. (No soft drinks or fast food are allowed.)
The festival also includes a chance for visitors to get in on the action by participating in several just-for-fun competitions, including a 1-mile Fun Run for children at 8:30 a.m.; 5-K footrace and woodcutting contest at 9 a.m.; antique auto show beginning at 9:30 a.m.; traditional mountain costume contests for women and children, and beard and moustache contests for men, at 12:15 p.m.; and horseshoe matches beginning at 1 p.m. Also, winners from “A Gathering In,” the festival’s traditional foods competition, will be on display all day.
Mountain Heritage Day attendees are encouraged to visit the nearby Mountain Heritage Center while on campus to examine its exhibits and displays. The museum is located on the ground floor of Robinson Building, and free hayrides will transport visitors between the main festival site and the heritage center.
Close parking is limited, but shuttles operate throughout the day. Special parking is available to those with physical disabilities. Pets are not allowed on festival grounds, but service animals are welcome.
Festival attendees are invited to stick around after Mountain Heritage Day activities end to cheer on WCU’s football Catamounts as they take on Georgia Southern University in a 6 p.m. Southern Conference clash at E.J. Whitmire Stadium. For ticket information, call (800) 34-GOWCU or click on the Web at http://catamountsports.cstv.com/tickets/wcar-tickets.html.
Mountain Heritage Day will be preceded by a pre-festival concert featuring bluegrass superstars Rhonda Vincent and the Rage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29, at WCU’s Ramsey Center.
For more general information about Mountain Heritage Day, call 227-3193 or visit mountainheritageday.com.
Schedule
8 a.m. – Registration begins for woodcutting contest, Mountain Heritage 5K footrace and 1-mile Fun Run
8:30 a.m. – Midway booths open, offering crafts and food; 1-mile Fun Run begins
9 a.m. – Woodcutting competition and 5K footrace begin
9:30 a.m. – Antique auto show begins
10 a.m. – Folk artists begin demonstrations; Mountain Heritage Center opens
11 a.m. – “Sacred Harp” shape-note sing and exhibition of Cherokee Indian ball begin
12:15 p.m. – Activities at the Norton Music Stage include presentation of Mountain Heritage Award and Eva Adcock Award; costume contest for women and children, and beard and moustache contests for men
12:30 p.m. – Exhibition of black powder musket shooting
1 p.m. – Exhibition of Cherokee Indian ball and men’s singles competition in horseshoe pitching begin
1:30 p.m. – “Christian Harmony” shape-note sing begins
2:30 p.m. – Exhibition of black powder musket shooting; women’s singles, men’s doubles in horseshoe pitching begin
5 p.m. Music stages and midway close
Folk arts demonstrations (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.)
Tom Brown – “apple detective”
Annie Lee Bryson – corn shuck crafts
Larry Stout – molasses making
John Henry Maney – pottery making
Johnnie Ruth Maney – bead making
Nancy Maney – doll making
Earl Lanning – gunsmithing
Lloyd Owle – stone carving
Beth Cox and Trevle Wood – basket making
R.O. Wilson – crosscut saw sharpening
David Brewin – blacksmithing
Carolina Quilters and Shepherd of the Hills Quilters – quilting (10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Mountain Heritage Center)
Traditional music stage
(Trina Royar, moderator)
10 a.m. – Choirs of three Cullowhee Churches
10:45 a.m. – Young Heritage Musicians
11:15 a.m. – Deitz Family
11:45 a.m. – Gar Mosteller and Doyle Barker
12:15 p.m. – Wolfetown Community Singers
12:45 p.m. – Queen Family
1:15 p.m. – Don Fox and Darlene Hodges
1:45 p.m. – Fisher Family Band
2:15 p.m. – Jean Reid
2:45 p.m. – Ed and Lawton and Friends
3:15 p.m. – Blue Ridge Rounders
Circle Tent
10 a.m. – “Jackson County: After the War,” led by the Jackson County Historical Association
11 a.m - 1 p.m. – Hands-On Children’s Heritage Area
1 p.m. – Storytelling with Lara Chew and Kathi Littlejohn
2 p.m. – Fiddle Circle, with moderator Ted Cooley, Bill Deitz, Darlene Hodges and Delbert Queen
3 p.m. – Banjo Circle, with moderator Ted Cooley, Chrystal Deitz, Barry Palmer and Henry Queen
Norton Music Stage
(Bill Nichols, moderator)
9:30 a.m. – Ambassadors Gospel
10 a.m. – Frogtown Four
10:30 a.m. – Mountain Faith
11 a.m. – Stoney Creek Boys
11:15 a.m. – Dixie Darlin’ Cloggers
11:30 a.m. – Dixie Darlin’ Cloggers – Second Generation
11:45 a.m. – Lough Family Band
12:15 p.m. – Presentation of Mountain Heritage Award, Eva Adcock Award; costume contest for women and children; beard and moustache contest for men
12:30 p.m. – Wild Hog Band
1 p.m. – Phil and Gaye Johnson
1:30 p.m. – Whitewater Bluegrass Co.
2 p.m. – Cullowhee Creek
2:30 p.m. – French Kirkpatrick & Co.
3 p.m. – Stoney Creek Boys
3:30 p.m. Rough Creek Cloggers
3:45 p.m. – Mountain Valley Cloggers
4 p.m. – Pirates of the Tuckaseigee
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