FAIRMONT – Oh, the stories they could tell … and do.
Members of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild will take the stage at Fairmont State University to usher in spring with one of Appalachia’s – well – most storied traditions.
It happens at 7 p.m. Friday at Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center on the Locust Avenue campus. Admission is free.
Ilene Evans, Linda Durrett, Larry Jent, Jo Ann Dadisman and Francene Kirk are the featured tellers for the evening. All are long associated with the spoken arts in the region.
For example, Evans, an actor, is known for her one-woman shows depicting the lives of Civil War abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Fairmont’s pioneering aviator Rose Cousins, among other luminaries.
And Kirk is a Fairmont State professor also known for her musical prowess on the mountain dulcimer.
The guild was formed in 1996 and has members from all walks across West Virginia.
Weaving tales by way of music and dramatic interpretation is as timeless as the Appalachian mountains that give the region its unique voice and presence, said Lydia Warren, who directs the folklife center at Fairmont State.
Having the Guild show up, the director said, is akin to an old friend dropping by the front porch on a summer night.
“We’re always thrilled to host the Guild and see what creativity and energy they bring,” Warren said. “It’s a really meaningful way to engage with the tradition.”
Across West Virginia’s hills and hollows, it’s a tradition that is always delivered via tellings that are poignant, sentimental, gloriously silly or even downright spooky.
Lee Maynard and Robert Tinnell can speak to the latter two.
The late Maynard, a journalist and author known for “Crum,” a notoriously scatalogical novel of his growing-up years in Wayne County, started practicing the craft as a little kid, in fact.
He wanted to see if he could get his grandmother to react.
“She had these great southern West Virginia expressions,” he said.
“I’d start out with a yarn that was a little out there. She’d say, ‘Boy, a-funnin’ me.’ I’d add a detail that would be a little wilder and she’d say, ‘Boy, you’re a-storyin’ me.’ Finally, it all got so outlandish that she’d just say, ‘Boy.’”
Tinnell, a Fairmont State graduate who grew up in Marion County and ended up in Los Angeles directing music videos before moving back home, doesn’t mind crafting films and graphic novels about things that bump in the night – in Almost Heaven.
West Virginia’s legendary ghost stories, he said, emerged from a creative need to set certain phenomena straight.
“If we can’t ‘explain it,’” he said, “we’ll use a tale.”
