• 10 a.m. — Shawn Crowe. Crowe is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, living in the Wolfetown Community on Wright’s Creek. He has worked in the broadcasting industry for the past 32 years as a voice talent, producer and engineer. He is also the media instructor for the Cherokee Youth Center Boys and Girls Club’s Cherokee Youth in Media program. He is active in helping to preserve the Cherokee language by utilizing his talents and opening his studio to the Kituwah Preservation and Education Program. 

• 11 a.m. — The Ammons Sisters, Amy and Doreyl. The duo grew up in Tuckasegee, in a little cove hidden on the side of a mountain. They were isolated, along with their brother David, from neighbors and other children, so they had only each other as playmates. Their entertainment came from their imagination, and from listening to their grandfather tell them stories of those ancestors who came before. Now the sisters, through the art of storytelling, share their stories of growing up in the mountains. 

• 1 p.m. — Dave Waldrop. A published poet and songwriter, Waldrop was born in a small frame home on Kitchens Branch near Sylva. During most of his childhood and teen years his family lived in houses that had no electricity or indoor plumbing. He attended public elementary and high schools in Jackson County. After serving four years in the U.S. Navy, he attended Western Carolina University, studying speech and hearing as well as obtaining a degree in psychology, receiving his master’s degree in counseling. 

• 2 p.m. — Gary Carden. Carden was raised by his grandparents in a house filled with the past. He listened to Grady Cole and Renfro Valley on the radio while his grandfather tuned musical instruments and sang hymns from a shape-note songbook. He grew up listening to a great deal of foolishness about “bad blood,” black Irish curses, and the evils of being “left handed.” He told his first stories to his grandfather’s chickens in a dark chicken-house when he was six years old.

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