Davis & Elkins Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Folk Music Legend Tom Paxton Celebrates 80th Birthday with Mountain Stage in Elkins This Saturday.

“Mountain Stage with Larry Groce” returns to Elkins, WV this Saturday, August 12 as the closing concert of the Augusta Heritage Festival.

The show will take place at 7:30pm at the Harper-McNeeley Auditorium in the Myles Center for the Arts on the campus of Davis & Elkins College. Scheduled to appear are folk-music icon Tom Paxton featuring The DonJuans– the duo of Don Henry and Jon Vezner, both accomplished songwriters and performers. Also on the bill is bluegrass mainstay and Augusta instructor Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, guitar-hero Bill Kirchen, also a past Augusta instructor, plus folk duo Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer and an emerging roots group with ties to Elkins and the Augusta Workshops, The Early Mays.

Tickets are $25, general admission, and are available online, by phone at 304.637.1255, and at the Augusta Heritage office.

Guitarist Laurie Lewis has instructed at the Augusta Workshops many times. Now she returns to showcase her band when Mountain Stage closes the Augusta Heritage Festival this Saturday.

Tom Paxton is one of the most prolific songwriter/performers in recorded music history, with songs covered by artists including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Weavers, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Willie Nelson, John Denver, Sandy Denny and The Move, among many others. A four-time Grammy nominee and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy in 2009 and an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award (for Folk) in 2002, Paxton has made six appearances on “Mountain Stage” since 1986.

Paxton’s new album, “Boat in the Water,” is produced by Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, who are also scheduled to be a part of the “Mountain Stage” program in Elkins. “Boat in the Water” is a fitting addition to a career that first took off in the fertile turf of New York’s Greenwich Village in the ‘60s, where his contemporaries included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez.

With movies like the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis (in which Paxton is portrayed as a soldier in uniform singing “The Last Thing on My Mind”) and the recent induction of Joan Baez into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ‘60s Village folk scene has been the focus of renewed attention. Tom will be celebrating his 80th at The Birchmere on October 28th and in NYC at Pace Univeristy October 29th.

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Emily Pinkerton, Ellen Gozion and Rachel Eddy comprise the roots trio The Early Mays, who appear on Mountain Stage this Saturday in Elkins, WV.

Pricketts Fort Forges New Connections By Teaching Old Skills

The blacksmith is one of the most enduring figures from the early days of American history. The art form calls to mind strength, ingenuity and craftsmanship…fire, iron and sweat. But in the age of technology and 3-D printers, what’s to become of this time-tested trade? One West Virginia state park is taking steps to forge new interest in traditional arts.

On this cool-for-mid-August day at Pricketts Fort State Park, coals in this blacksmith shop are burning hot and bright, fanned by bursts of air from a gi-normous bellows suspended from the ceiling. Most days this is where you would encounter a park employee demonstrating the art of blacksmithing.

But today, a group of students is getting the chance to try the craft as part of a three-day hands-on workshop.

Jim Mays works on applying the techniques he has learned in the Pricketts Fort Blacksmithing Workshop.

“I’m Jim Mays, living in Farmington right now but originally from East Side of Fairmont. This is on my bucket list of what I wanted to do, so a good chance to get it done.”

Mays is a retired steelworker who did construction and ran heavy equipment in the coal mines. He has a small forge at home and is taking the class in hopes of learning a new skill. He watches closely as the instructor demonstrates techniques.

“There are several things I want to try to make,” says Mays. “He’s a good teacher. He’s got some – gotta lot of patience.”

The patient instructor is Greg Bray, Executive Director of Pricketts Fort. Bray first learned the craft at the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis & Elkins College. He’s now earned his living as a blacksmith for more than twenty years, but he can remember that initial learning curve.

“This is the beginning class. They all struggle just a little bit and it gets frustrating for ‘em. It was frustrating for me when I started,” says Bray. “And I tell that story every time I start a class – a new class – and I tell how frustrated I was and how I almost didn’t pursue it and that kind of helps them out a little bit.”

Greg Bray shows Chuck Huff of Fayetteville, Georgia a technique during the Pricketts Fort Blacksmithing Workshop.

“My name is Chuck Huff. I’m from Fayetteville, Georgia. It is challenging, I mean, it’s a little harder than I thought, but you learn a lot. It’s very interesting – but difficult.”

Use your tongs. Take your time. Don't get in a big hurry, because if you start hurrying and rush around, these things are going to flop around – move around – and you're not going to get anything accomplished. – Greg Bray to students in the Pricketts Fort Blacksmithing Workshop

“My name is Ed Harris. I’m from Rivesville West Virginia and I’m taking the class – several reasons. A new hobby. To make something. My wife is into crafts and she likes the 17^th and 18^th century decorations and so I said well I’ll see if can make ‘em.”

His favorite part of the class so far?

“The challenge of learning something new with my hands and seeing the art – the art form.”

Generating enthusiasm for the art form and for the past is one of the goals of the workshop. But Bray says there is another reason – and that is to make sure this type of opportunity is available in the future.

“If you don’t pass this on – if you don’t find people that care about it and want to try it and want to do it, then it’s going to be lost,” says Bray. “And we’re seeing that in our staffing today because there’s not a lot of new people coming up – we’re all getting older out here at the fort and we’re not seeing new people coming up.”

Jim Hays and Ed Harris team up to practice what they’ve learned at the Pricketts Fort Blacksmithing Workshop.

Bray is encouraged by the response to the workshops. He offers them two or three times a year. One gentleman who has taken the blacksmithing workshop twice stopped by today to visit the fort. Bob Minney recruited his army buddy, Chuck Huff, to come up for the class. Minney regrets not learning these skills from his grandfather and father, but says he’s very glad that Pricketts Fort is taking up the slack and teaching all sorts of traditional arts and trades skills to the current generation.

“I recommend – learn to do things with your hands – get back to not just buying and throwing away – but repair and make things,” says Minney. “And it’s satisfying – it’s good for the soul. That’s all!”

“The whole thing’s a process and – if I keep you on the same thing over and over again you’re going to get aggravated,” Bray tells the students. “So I try to mix it up – but it’s a process so – give it a shot.”

Davis & Elkins increases enrollement by 68%

Davis & Elkins College recently announced admission figures which demonstrate the College’s fifth consecutive year of increased enrollment.

Davis & Elkins College reports a total growth of 65.8 percent since 2008. The Office of the Registrar reported the official figures for the new academic year totaling 847 full-time students, 318 are new students and 529 are returning students.

The president of the College attributes the rise in enrollment to various factors including the Highlands Scholars program, recent upgrades in facilities, the highly credentialed faculty and staff, and the revision of curricular and co-curricular programs.

Recent upgrades and improvements include new $600,000 synthetic turf field and Locker Rooms, renovations to the school’s Ceramics Studio, and the addition of a dance program an arts and entertainment season for students and the public.