FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On September 27, the banks of the Guadalupe River at Kerrville’s Louise Hays Park will be the setting as Texas storytellers from all across the state will participate in the annual Hill Country community educational event, Texas Heritage Living History Day.

Now in its seventh year, Texas Heritage Living History Day will gather more than two thousand students, teachers and others from the Central Texas area to listen to the stories of noted storytellers, poets, humorists and Texas historians.

Among the more than fifty performers to be featured at Living History Day will be members of the 2001-2002 Texas Commission of the Arts Touring Artist Roster. They are:

Tim Tingle, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a highly regarded Native American storyteller. A veteran performer at the Texas Folklife Festival and at Six Flags Over Texas, Tingle focuses on ghost stories of Texas, Choctaw tribal lore, and Trickster tales. In October of 2001, the Woodcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers selected him as “Contemporary Storyteller of the Year.”

With over thirty years of public school and university teaching experience, Doc Moore is an award-winning teller of history, folk, ghost and inspirational stories. Moore, who hails from Canyon Lake, has been a popular draw at Six Flags Over Texas for the last ten years and is a founding member of Hill Country Storytellers. His costumed characters range from the rodeo circuit rider to the medicine show pitchman.

For more than a decade, Anne McCrady has been both a storyteller and story-dancer of East Texas tales and poetry. A featured teller at the Rusk County Heritage Syrup Festival, the Squatty Pines Storytelling Festival, and the Texas Storytelling Festival, Ms. McCrady will sometimes incorporate ethnic percussion instruments or just a simple guitar in both traditional and original stories. A member of the TCA Touring Artist Roster and an avid supporter of education and students, Anne’s award-winning poems have been published both online and in print journals and anthologies.

A teller of tales since childhood, Allen Wayne Damron has been a mainstay at the Kerrville Folk Festival for more than 25 years. A noted actor, hunting guide, tracker, World Class Rifle shot and Texas historian, Damron has been labeled a "Texas Legend". A resident of Terlingua, Damron has released more than 16 audio tapes and CD's of his stories and Cowboy poetry and has ten major film roles to his credit, including 1987's "Alamo, The Price of Freedom."

With a BA in zoology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Lucas Miller would seem to be the odd man out at an event such as Texas Heritage Living History Day. However, as a member of the TCA's Roster of Touring Artists, there is a lot more than meets the eye. Miller was named in 2001 as "Best New Artist for Older Children" in the 2001 Children's Music Web Awards and his first CD, "The Anaconda La Bamba!, won a Parents' Choice "Recommended" award in the fall of 2000. Since 1992, Miller has reached over 200,000 kids at schools, public libraries and festivals, and is a welcome addition to this year's Living History Day.

Bobby Bridger, great grand nephew of famous American mountain man Jim Bridger and author of "A Ballad of the West" will be making his first-ever appearance at Texas Heritage Living History Day. A popular performer known to thousands of Kerrville Folk Festival attendees, Bridger will be sharing his tales of the mountain man and the Lakota Sioux at the event. Among the many notable highlights in a long and successful recording and acting career, Bridger is also the host of "The Tradition Lives On", a history of ballads produced by textbook publisher Holt, Rinehart & Winston as part of an experimental global electronic textbook.

Other members of the TCA Roster of Touring Artists that will be performing at Texas Heritage Living History Day will be Donna Ingham, who specializes in telling Texas Tales; humorist and Cowboy poet, Dennis Gaines; and Finley Stewart, storyteller and author of "Best Stories from the Texas Storytelling Festival".

Over forty other performers will also be at Louise Hays Park for Texas Heritage Living History Day. The event will begin a 9 a.m. and will last until 3 p.m. and admission will be free.

Rounding out the weekend's festivities will be the First Annual Texas Heritage Seminar at Schreiner University on Saturday, September 28 from 10 a.m. to Noon, featuring papers and presentations on Texas Heritage education, as well as, a Sunday concert to benefit Literacy and Learning and the Wayne Kennemer Scholarship Fund. Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines will be performing at 3 p.m. at the Dietert Auditorium at Schreiner University. Tickets are on sale and are $15 each.

For more information, check out the Texas Heritage Music Foundation website at www.texasheritagemusic.org.

Contact: Tim Wilton or Kathleen Hudson (830) 367-3750 e-mail: kat@maverickbbs.com

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