Apprenticeships, Event

Save the Dates: 2025 West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcases

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Save the Dates: 2025 West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcases

Come celebrate the achievements of the 2024-25 West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program participants! West Virginia Folklife is hosting TWO free showcases featuring demonstrations and performances, open to the public. Refreshments provided.

Meet the folklife apprenticeship pairs and learn about traditional arts of West Virginia!

Saturday, November 1, 2025

Location: West Virginia Humanities Council, at the historic MacFarland-Hubbard House
1310 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston, WV 25301
1:00pm

Featuring:
–    Tim Bing & Edwin McCoy, old-time banjo
–    Bill Hairston & Aristotle Jones, Appalachian storytelling
–    Dural Miller & Linesha Frith, urban farming/gardening
–    Nancy Nelson & Chef KD Jones, Appalachian candy making
–    Judy Van Gundy & Andrea Brandon-Hennig, white oak basketry

Sunday, November 9, 2025

Location: Arthurdale Heritage, Inc.
18 Q Rd, Arthurdale, WV 26520
3:00pm
This event is dedicated to the memory of Richard Eddy

Featuring:
–    Margaret Bruning & Nevada Tribble, fiber arts & weaving
–    The late Richard Eddy & Katie McCoy, fiddle repair
–    Ginny Hawker & Mary Linscheid, Primitive Baptist hymn singing
–    Taylor Runner & Annick Odom, square dance calling
–    Ben Townsend & Bodhi Gibbons-Guinn, old-time fiddle
We will host a square dance at this event following the demonstrations.

Please RSVP so we can estimate attendance.

Contact West Virginia State Folklorist Jennie Williams with questions at 304-346-8500 or williams@wvhumanities.org

West Virginia Folklife is a program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. These events are made possible with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, and Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions program.

If you would like to support West Virginia Folklife and the West Virginia Humanities Council, please make a donation. Thank you!

A man and a woman standing beside each other outside smiling for the picture.
Taylor Runner (right) and his square dance calling apprentice Annick Odom. Photo by Jennie Williams.
Two musicians play on an outdoor stage with a white tent overhead.
Edwin McCoy competes during the banjo contest at the 2025 Vandalia Gathering. Edwin is apprenticing Tim Bing to learn old-time banjo techniques. Photo by Jennie Williams.
A woman wearing a red shirt and sweatshirt is holding a loom and smiling, standing outside a homestead on a hill.
Fiber arts and weaving apprentice Nevada Tribble at her mentor Margaret Bruning’s home. Photo courtesy of Nevada Tribble.
A man in a black t-shirt and hat stands beside a table and demonstrates making chocolate dipped peanut butter candies.
KD Jones demonstrates how to make his family’s chocolate-dipped peanut butter candies. Photo by Jennie Williams.
A woman in a purple t-shirt holds a fiddle and stands beside a table filled with broken fiddle pieces and tools.
Katie McCoy demonstrates how to repair a fiddle. Photo by Jennie Williams.
Two women stand beside a table filled with baskets as the older woman holds up a basket and addresses the audience.
Judy Van Gundy describes how to make white oak baskets with her apprentice Andrea Brandon-Hennig (right). Photo by Jennie Williams.
A man and a woman pose for a selfie beside a work bench with a fiddle and tools.
Richard Eddy (left) with his fiddle repair apprentice Katie McCoy. Photo courtesy of Katie McCoy.
A teenage boy playing fiddle and sitting beside a man playing the banjo.
Ben Townsend (right) plays banjo with his old-time fiddle apprentice Bodhi Gibbons-Guinn. Photo courtesy of Jeanne Gibbons.
Two people smiling for a selfie and holding hymnals.
Ginny Hawker (left) with her Primitive Baptist hymn singing apprentice Mary Linscheid. Photo courtesy of Mary Linscheid.
Two men standing beside each other smiling for a camera.
Bill Hairston (right) with his Appalachian storytelling apprentice Aristotle Jones. Photo by Jennie Williams.
A crowd of people square dancing. The wall behind them is lined with beautiful quilts. The band plays in the back ground.
Taylor Runner calls a square dance at The Culture Center in Charleston, WV during the 2025 Vandalia Gathering. His square dance calling apprentice Annick Odom plays upright bass in the band. Photo by Jennie Williams.
A Black man in a gray long-sleeved shirt stands with his arm around a younger Black woman wearing a bright blue puffy jacket, both smiling for the camera. They are standing outside in front of the Keep Your Faith Corporation building and their urban farming plot.
Dural Miller (right) with his apprentice Linesha Frith at the Keep Your Faith Corporation farm on Charleston’s West Side where they grow fresh produce for the community. Photo courtesy of Linesha Frith.
Two white women stand against a tree outside smiling together. On the left, a younger woman with brown hair wearing an orange flannel button down and holding long splints from white oak used to make baskets. On the right, an older woman with white hair and glasses wearing a purple sweater.
Judy Van Gundy (right) with her apprentice Andrea Brandon-Hennig. Andrea is holding materials used to make white oak baskets. Photo courtesy of Judy Van Gundy.
A woman stands beside a table, and bags of seeds and soil are on the table.
Linesha Frith, apprentice to Dural Miller, prepares seeds for her garden beds. Photo courtesy of Linesha Frith.
People gather outdoors at a community garden and work together to prepare the garden beds.
Apprentice Linesha Frith (wearing brown outfit) hosted a community event to prepare garden beds for planting produce in Charleston’s West Side. Photo courtesy of Linesha Frith.

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