September 13, 1999
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Thermopolis, Wyo. - Folk skill demonstrations and craftsmen will be featured at the first annual Folk Fest!, Saturday, Sept.. 18, at the Old West Wax Museum in downtown Thermopolis. Visitors can try their hand at spinning, weaving, and other folk crafts during the day. Demonstrations start at 10 a.m. and will go through 5 p.m. Special guests will be Helen Hart, Cheyenne, who will demonstrate weaving for kids and Marsha Hill, Worland, who will demonstrate basket weaving. Dick Hart, Cheyenne, will present a special one-man performance/show on Teddy Roosevelt and the West at 2 p.m. Hart has presented the program throughout the state and is well known as a Roosevelt look alike. Roosevelt was responsible for organizing the National Park system and naming Yellowstone as the first national park. Displays on Roosevelt and Yellowstone can be seen in the Wax Museum and in the teddy bear den. Local Thermopolis artisans who will demonstrate include Audrey Philips, spinning and knitting; Brenda Evans, quilting; Cindy Clancy, immigrant tin painting; David and Rosemary Wallace of The Color Guard, flag painting; Tillie Witt ("Miss Tillie"), herbal folklore and herb crafts; Kent Hessenthaler, fur tanning and trapping; Glenna Tebbits, rag-rug making. Musical entertainment will be provided by Prairie Grass, with Jake, Zeib, and Joan Stetler. Doug Abbott, Kirby, will provide cowboy poetry and down-home songs during the day. A traditional music contest will
be open for amateurs from noon until 2 p.m. |
First Annual Folk Fest! Attendance small but Appreciative About 200 people attended the first annual Folk Fest! at the Old West Wax Museum complex Saturday, Sept. 18. A rainy afternoon cut down on afternoon attendance and forced demonstrators to scatter for shelter at one point.
Visitors watched more than a dozen demonstrators quilting, spinning, knitting, weaving, doing Indian bead work, making rag rugs, baskets as well as tin painting and flag painting. Bluegrass and traditional music was provided by Thermopolis' own Prairie Grass with cowboy songs and poetry by Doug Abbott, Kirby.
Plans call for the event to be held in October each year. We want to see this expand into a larger event for the community. Many of these old-time skills are rarely seen anymore. We need to preserve them. Young people need to know just what their parents and grandparents had to do to survive -- how resourceful they were.
People who came to Wyoming 100 years ago reverted a generation back -- to a time without running water, electricity or plumbing. Conditions were often as hard as they had been back East during the American Revolution.
Wyoming has a history of festivals fashioned after the rendezvous that brought together local Native American tribes and white businessmen, trapper, traders and even settlers. A number of Wyoming towns have festivals that celebrate the rendezvous and;outdoor skills, Blakey said. It has not been until the last few years that we have begun to see and interest in the daily like-skills of the early settlers. We're starting to see the rendezvous-style festivals expand to include such things as needle arts and hand crafts.
A Folk Fest committee will be organized to plan for Folk Fest 2000. Anyone interested in being involved in the project can contact Sue Blakey at the Old West Wax Museum, P.o. Box 71, Thermopolis or call 307 864 3391 or 307 864 9396.
Folk Fest is supported by a grant from the Wyoming Arts Council, through funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming State Legislature. Dancing Bear Folk Center is part of Big Horn Basin Education Foundation.