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WCU’s 34th Mountain Heritage Day is set for Sept. 27
Western Carolina University’s upcoming Mountain Heritage Weekend 2008 will feature Mountain Heritage Day, WCU’s daylong festival of mountain culture, on Saturday, Sept. 27, and a performance by the hot bluegrass band Balsam Range on Friday, Sept. 26.
Set for 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, the 34th annual Mountain Heritage Day will offer three stages of mountain music and dance, a 140-booth arts and crafts midway, and traditional mountain food. Admission and parking at the festival are free.
The event typically attracts more than 25,000 visitors to WCU on the last Saturday each September, but the event rarely gets crowded as it’s held on spacious athletic fields around the university’s Camp Building.
The festival once again will offer demonstrations of traditional folk arts such as blacksmithing, wood-carving and pottery-making. A writer for Southern Living magazine once referred to Mountain Heritage Day as “an open textbook of Appalachian folk life.”
Performances by pint-sized cloggers are always a crowd favorite at Mountain Heritage Day. The festival is set for Saturday, Sept. 27, on the WCU campus.
While on campus, Mountain Heritage Day attendees are encouraged to visit the Mountain Heritage Center, WCU’s museum of Appalachian history and culture, to view its exhibits and displays. Free hayrides will be available to transport visitors between the main festival grounds and the museum.
Children will have an opportunity to learn about mountain culture at the Hands-On History Children’s Area, and all festival-goers will have a chance to experience a unique American musical tradition during two sessions of shape-note singing. Also on the agenda are exhibitions of Cherokee Indian ball (also known as “stickball”) and black powder shooting, and numerous competitions, including a woodcutting contest, 5-K foot race, 1-mile Fun Run for children, antique auto show, costume contest for children and adults, and a beard and moustache contest for men.
Returning to Mountain Heritage Day are the Warriors of AniKituhwa, a Cherokee dance group that re-creates authentic Cherokee dances as described almost 250 years ago. The Warriors will present dances at 10:30 a.m. on the Norton Music Stage, and then lead an interpretative discussion about their dances at the festival Circle Tent at 11:30 a.m.
Mountain Heritage Day is held outside, rain or shine. Close parking is limited, but shuttles operate throughout the day to transport visitors from outlying parking areas to the festival grounds. Visitors coming onto campus should watch out for designated shuttle pick-up locations. Special parking is available for those with physical disabilities.
Visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs to set up at the stages, and also to bring hats and plenty of sunscreen if a sunny day is in the forecast.
Pets are not allowed on Mountain Heritage Day grounds, but service animals are welcome.
Pre-festival concert
Mountain Heritage Weekend 2008 will get under way Sept. 26 with a pre-Mountain Heritage Day performance featuring Western North Carolina’s own Balsam Range on stage at WCU’s Fine and Performing Arts Center.
The bluegrass band composed of five Haywood County, N.C., residents will get the music started in the arts center performance hall at 7:30 p.m.
Blending contemporary and traditional bluegrass, Balsam Range features Grammy Award-winning banjo player Marc Pruitt, fiddler Buddy Melton, Darren Nicholson on mandolin, guitarist Caleb Smith and bass player Tim Surrett. Early this summer, Balsam Range was listed on several of the leading national bluegrass charts, with its debut album, “Marching Home,” and several singles from the album listed in the top 10.
General admission tickets are available for $10 each by calling the Fine and Performing Arts Center at 227-2479 (Visa or MasterCard) or by visiting the box office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Tickets also may be purchased online at http://fapac.wcu.edu.
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