Planting seeds: Guild hits the road to spread the word
With cheers and laughter, seven Jonesborough Storytelling Guild members boarded a bus Friday, intent upon the mission of spreading the word.
There are so many people that dont know what storytelling is, said Linda Poland, a member of the guild and Jonesboroughs resident storyteller. There are so many people that dont know they have a story. If we can get to some of these veterans, some of these children, they can know that they have importance.
The guild will be winding their way from Jonesborough to Kansas City, Missouri, for the National Storytelling Network Conference, set to begin July 30. Along the way, they will be telling Jonesborough stories to some new audiences.
Were sowing seeds of storytelling along the road, said Sherril Miller, one of the organizers of the trip, though shell be holding down the fort at home. It took a lot of time (to get this together), but part of our guilds mission is spreading storytelling and preserving it. What were hoping results is that were going to get some new sister guilds out of this.
The International Storytelling Centers Kiran Singh Sirah, who rose early for the July 24, 7:30 a.m. sendoff, also sees the guilds current road quest as an important one.
I think its awesome, Sirah said. I like to think of it as were in the oldest mountains in the world; we have the oldest art form; were the storytelling capital of the world; and were going to spread the love of storytelling.
The Jonesborough Guild are our ambassadors.
The ambassadors include storytellers David Claunch, Judy Butterfly Farlow, Saundra Kelley, Linda Poland, Delanna Reed, Jeff Stratton and Libby Tipton. They will be visiting nine venues throughout Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri, and will be telling stories to veterans, seniors, church groups, elementary students and general audiences.
The trip is designed to take four days, and will bring them to Kansas City just in time for the conference.
Here we come Kansas City, said storyteller Saundra Kelley moments before the tellers boarded the bus. Our mission is to perpetuate storytelling. Storytelling is the first language of people.
Its so important. And we tend to forget it.
For Marjorie Schaefer, another teller who helped organize the event but will remain in Jonesborough, it may be the communitys love and encouragement that stands out the most.
Its really exciting to see it all come together and to have such support from the Town of Jonesborough, Schaefer said, as the Friday morning sendoff crowd gathered around her. We have been just awed by the amount of support we have received.