Memorial Day Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Ball Gowns, Curtsies And A Queen: Pineville, Kentucky Hosts Elaborate Dance Tradition With Polish Roots

The Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival happens every Memorial Day weekend on the grounds of a scenic state park. It’s a four-day celebration that culminates with an exquisite tradition: the Grand March, a dance that has been taught to Kentucky college students in Pineville since the first festival in 1931.

This story originally aired in the May 19, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

In eastern Kentucky, the town of Pineville has the oldest festival on record in the state. The Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival happens every Memorial Day weekend on the grounds of a scenic state park.

It’s a four-day celebration that culminates with an exquisite tradition: the Grand March, a dance that has been taught to Kentucky college students in Pineville since the first festival in 1931. Its roots go even deeper, though, to 16th century Poland.

Folkways Reporter Will Warren was born and raised in Pineville and grew up taking part in the festival. In 2023, he went back home and reported on the Grand March as part of our Folkways Reporting Project.

Editor’s Note: Will Warren is also an affiliate director of the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival.

First Step: A Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival Queen Is Crowned

The Grand March is the finale of the festival. The dance takes place in a high school gym that’s transformed into a pink and green wonderland.

Earlier in the day, women representing Kentucky’s colleges (known as “queen candidates”) are introduced in a ceremony at the Laurel Cove, a natural amphitheater carved out of the side of a mountain in Pine Mountain State Park.

The queen candidates and accompanying court take their positions in the Laurel Cove Amphitheater.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The ceremony begins with the introduction of the queen candidates. Each performs a curtsy before Kentucky’s governor, who attends the event every year to crown the new Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival queen.

A queen candidate performs the tradition of the curtsy as the crowd looks on in anticipation.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

In 2023, Gov. Andy Beshear crowned Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College student Paige Smith.

“I was definitely shocked,” says Smith. “I didn’t think I was gonna win. Because after being there the whole week and seeing how seriously they take it, and how big of a tradition it is, and how involved everyone gets, the fact that I was picked as the representative was a huge deal. I was honored.”

Smith was one of 18 candidates from across the state. She says she was surprised by the amount of detail and preparation that goes into the ceremony. She received both a handmade flower crown and a one-of-a-kind pearl crown.

“The amount of tradition and planning that goes into that – it’s ridiculous. I had no idea it was that grand of a thing.”

Paige Smith, the 2023 Mountain Laurel Festival queen, gets crowned by Gov. Andy Beshear while the previous year’s queen looks on.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The Dance’s Roots And Evolution

Following the ceremony, the focal point of the night is the Grand March. It’s a 93-year-old tradition of couples dancing.

Phil Jamison, an author, professional dance caller and expert on Appalachian dance, says the Grand March is a variation on the promenade.

“The simplest form [of the dance] is promenading around the room,” Jamison says. “And then up the center, and they split off – one couple goes one way, one goes the other – and they come up the center four by four, and then four go one way, four go the other way, and come up the center eight by eight.”

After splitting off, the candidates come back together four by four, then eight by eight.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The couples form a snake around the room and end with a human tunnel of candidates and their escorts that the queen shuffles through.

The candidates and their escorts form a human tunnel that the queen shuffles through.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The Grand March is a type of dance that’s descended from a formal ballroom dance called the polonaise, originating in Poland as far back as the 16th century.

“All the couples will be promenading around the room showing off their fine clothes and dignified style,” Jamison says. “And that was the way that a lot of balls opened in Europe, and then in this country, too, well into the 1800s.”

The dance itself is part of a living tradition that has evolved over time, inspiring other forms of dance along the way. One of those dances is the cakewalk. The cakewalk is a pre-Civil War dance form originally performed by enslaved people on plantations as a mockery of the Grand March.

“The Black folks would parody that and mimic it back in their own dances and put on ridiculous airs and high-stepping stuff, which eventually evolved into the cakewalk.”

Passing On Tradition

Decked out in white ball gowns, the candidates with their escorts make the Grand March look easy. For the festival organizers and candidates, however, perfecting the Grand March is a labor of love.

Taylor Thomas from Pineville, grew up with the festival. She’s now on the committee that teaches the dance to the candidates and their escorts.

“It sounds kind of hard,” Taylor says. “But once you’re actually standing there and doing it, it all comes together pretty seamlessly.”

Her mother, Prudie Thomas, was once a candidate herself and taught the Grand March for decades before passing the tradition on to Taylor.

Part of what makes the dance work so well is that there’s a manual that has also been passed down for generations. This manual has detailed notes, diagrams and pictures of exactly how the dance should be performed.

“Because you know that those diagrams and that handwriting is of someone who took such pride in the Mountain Laurel Festival,” Prudie says. And it’s also so detailed that we can’t mess it up today.”

A Living Heritage

While steeped in history, the Grand March remains a living tradition. It’s part of why Pineville takes immense pride in hosting the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival every year.

“That little town sparkles that weekend,” Prudie Thomas says. “Everybody is out mowing grass and planting flowers, and the high school kids are painting the corners of the streets with the Mountain Laurel [Festival] logo.”

The festival weekend is a moment in time that draws people back to the town year after year.

“People just want to come back and be a part of it,” Taylor Thomas says. “I don’t know of any other thing in the world that would compare to something like this. It’s like stepping back in time, and everybody needs to come experience it at least once.”

That experience includes one-of-a-kind art pieces and heirlooms, like the scepter and the cape train awarded to the queen, and the tradition of the curtsy, which might be unfamiliar outside of Pineville, but is well known to the community.

“As soon as you can walk in Bell County you know how to do a curtsy, because of the Mountain Laurel Festival,” Taylor says.

The Grand March is the culmination of another successful year of the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival. For Paige Smith, the 2023 Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival queen, the dance is a fun time at the end of a long weekend of festivities.

“Just because after that, everyone’s just kind of relieved. [The Grand March is] the last thing you really have to do. Everybody got to enjoy themselves after that. And the Grand March was fun. I had a good time. It’s a cool tradition.”

The 2023 Mountain Laurel Festival queen leads the Grand March through the pink and green decorations.

*Photo Credit: Will Warren/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia.

The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Travelers Reminded To Buckle Up During Holiday Travel

As the Memorial Day holiday approaches, state officials are advising travelers on state roads to keep safety in mind.

Around 600,000 vehicles are expected to travel on the West Virginia Turnpike Thursday through Monday.

The West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program reminds drivers and passengers to buckle their seat belt during the Click It or Ticket high visibility enforcement campaign and every day of the year.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s national seat belt enforcement mobilization runs through June 4.

In 2021, 280 people lost their lives on West Virginia roads. Passenger vehicle fatalities totaled 184 people, with 74 of them confirmed as being unbuckled/unrestrained.

West Virginia’s seat belt use rate climbed to 92.5 percent in 2022, the highest use rate recorded in West Virginia.

At the current seat belt use rate, preliminary data shows unbuckled West Virginians are 18.21 times more likely to die in a crash than those who are properly restrained.

W.Va. Turnpike Holiday Traffic Tops 884,000 Vehicles

The West Virginia Turnpike saw more than 884,000 vehicles pass through its toll booths in the week leading up to Memorial Day.

The West Virginia Department of Transportation says the total included heavier-than-expected traffic on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week.

West Virginia Parkways Authority Executive Director Jeff Miller says that could have been because travelers were trying to get out ahead of heavy rains forecast for that Thursday.

Miller said the Thursday and Friday were the “big days,” when more than 268,000 vehicles used the turnpike.

Miller said there were no significant delays for turnpike drivers over Memorial Day weekend.

Harpers Ferry Looks Back At African American Memorial Day Tradition

After the Civil War, families of fallen Union soldiers recognized Decoration Day by adorning the graves of their loved ones with flowers. That remembrance became what’s now known as Memorial Day and also became a unique holiday for African American tourists visiting West Virginia during the late 19th century.

One of the earliest known observations of Memorial Day in the state began in the 1870s when groups of people would picnic at Island Park, an amusement park outside Harpers Ferry. These annual celebrations carried into the early 20th century and attracted hundreds of African American tourists. Harpers Ferry National Park intern Cassie Chandler is researching the park’s tourist community as part of her studies.

“Island Park was a wonderful place, especially, of course, in the African American community,” Chandler said. “A lot of churches came to Island Park to score a day of fun. They’d picnic. They played games. And how they would get here was through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.”

In 1878, the B&O Railroad Company bought the park. Railroad companies were some of the largest employers of African Americans after the Civil War, though work conditions were still unfavorable compared to those of their white peers. Harpers Ferry park ranger Melinda Day says the destination became known as a safe public place for African Americans after its development, making it an annual vacation destination for both Black and white employees of the railroad.

African American community members crossing the Island Park bridge from the train station to the amusement park.

“They tended to be very hungry for leisurely destinations that were free from hostility, humiliation and exclusion that tended to mark their experiences at other white public spaces and commemorative sites,” Day said.

Island Park was also close to the historically Black Storer College. The Harpers Ferry school was built in 1867 to help educate the 30,000 African Americans in the region recently freed from enslavement. When school was out of session, the college would rent out the dorms to tourists in the area. This contributed to the notable amount of Black visitors to the island for holidays like Memorial Day.

“When the students broke for the summer, they would go home and those dorms were empty,” Day said. “And then the college started to put together that so many people, both white and Black, were coming here and needed a place to stay.”

Today, Island Park is just a memory. The facilities were wiped out by flooding in the 1920s. But the National Park Service has preserved the park’s only surviving structure, the Harpers Ferry Bandstand. The building is still in use today by community members and musicians.

Justice Cancels COVID-19 Briefing, Receiving Treatment For Possible Lyme Disease

In a statement, Gov. Jim Justice announced Wednesday evening he began feeling sick after events on Monday in Wheeling and Blacksville.

“I immediately got tested for COVID-19 and was negative, but I am still having symptoms and nowhere near 100 percent,” Justice said. “As of now, I am being treated for possible Lyme disease.”

The governor postponed his regular COVID-19 briefing for the week and said he will hold one as soon as possible after the Memorial Day holiday.

Justice tested positive for coronavirus in January. He recovered from moderate symptoms after receiving monoclonal antibody treatment .

Motorcycle Riders Cross West Virginia Headed For Vietnam Memorial

Approximately 50 motorcycle riders crossed West Virginia Thursday on their way to a candlelight vigil at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. for Memorial Day.

The cross-country motorcycle trek is called the Remember Our Fallen ride. The official Ride For The Wall was canceled for the second straight year due to COVID-19 concerns.

About 50 riders were determined to take the ride anyway. The sounds of their motorcycles could be heard by those at the state capitol as the bikers journeyed on a leg through Charleston.

This 10-day ride began in California and ends at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

For Jarrod Gerbitz from Jennings, Kansas said he has always “had a deep down feeling that we need some accountability for all of our prisoners of war and everyone who has not made it home.”

Riders leave the state capitol on their way to the Vietnam Memorial.

Michael Mulligan began his ride in Crested Butte, Colorado, but rode to Los Angeles to join up with other riders. He estimates by the time he gets home, it will be a 7,000 mile ride. He has been making this journey since 2014.

The ride continues this year, he said, even though the official ride has been canceled, because of the efforts of “a group of like minded people who continue the mission.” He noted that many of his fellow riders said they have made the trip a number of times and, like him, their mission is to ride for those who can’t.

“I ride for my dad. He’s a Vietnam vet,” Mulligan said.

He is not a veteran himself, but this is how Mulligan serves now. He will meet his father at the Vietnam Memorial, and together pay tribute.

“I will get to go to the candlelight vigil and to the Vietnam Memorial,” he said. “And it’s all about supporting my dad.”