Mars Hill College News

CHURCH YOUTH DAY AT MARS HILL COLLEGE TO FEATURE WILL GRAHAM, ANNIE MOSES BAND

Church groups and individuals are already registering to attend Church Youth Day at Mars Hill College on September 25, with featured speaker Will Graham, and musical guests, the Annie Moses Band.

Following an inspirational service in Moore Auditorium in the morning, participants will be invited to have lunch at the Mars Hill cafeteria. Church Youth Day will also include the chance to take in both men’s and women’s soccer games at Ammons Family Athletic Center, as the MHC Lions take on their SAC rivals, the Indians of Catawba College.

Speaker Will Graham is the third generation of Grahams to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the banner of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Will is the grandson of Billy Graham and the oldest son of Franklin Graham. His ministry focuses on youth-oriented, one-day events.

The Annie Moses Band is a Christian family of Juilliard-trained musicians and award winning songwriters dedicated to virtuosity in the arts, musical excellence, strength of family, and a message of faith.

According to Dr. Gordon Benton, Director of Church Relations at Mars Hill College, Church Youth Day is an event designed to draw the community and the college together under a common banner of worship, good music and fun.

“I hope that the local church groups and families of western North Carolina will take advantage of this day to come together for worship and fun at Mars Hill College,” Benton said. “It’s very exciting to be able to offer an inspiring biblical message from Will Graham and high-quality music from the Annie Moses Band. Add a couple of Lions’ soccer games and you have an exciting event for the whole family and church group.”

Advance tickets are $12 per person before September 11; $15 after that date. This amount covers lunch and other events of the day. For more information, or to register your family or church group, contact Gordon Benton at gbenton@mhc.edu or 828/689-1276.

Smithsonian Institution Exhibition, “New Harmonies,” Comes to Mars Hill College

When traditional musician Joe Penland sings the old songs that he learned as a boy from ballad singers on Sodom Laurel, he knows he is calling up ghosts of love and longing not only from early Appalachia, but from the ancient Celtic highlands where many of those tunes originated.

“Twelve generations of my folks thought this music was important enough to keep alive. It was handed down just like DNA. If something has been that important, how can you not want to keep it up? I don’t want it to die with me.”

Just as notes of celtic history are found throughout traditional Appalachian music, the stories of other countries and native peoples are written in thousands of sounds and instruments that have made their way into the history of American music. Exploring those connections is the goal of a traveling Smithsonian Institution Exhibition coming to Mars Hill College this fall, called New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music.

From September 25 to November 6, 2010, Mars Hill College will host New Harmonies, which highlights our country’s unique and rich cultural soundtrack. The exhibit is a provided through Museum on Main Street, a partnership of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), and the Federation of State Humanities Council.

As a frequent performer at Mars Hill College’s Bascom Lamar Lunsford “Minstrel of Appalachia” festival, Penland and musicians like him are part of Mars Hill College’s ongoing effort to preserve Appalachian music for future generations.

As a native of Madison County, he understands that like the ballads he sings, all of American music is an inheritance from earlier times and other cultures. He has stood on the land of Pentland Hills, Scotland, not far from where his distant ancestor lived before making the perilous journey to America. From there, it is inevitable to contemplate what drove those long-ago Scots to make their epic crossing.

“I can’t think of anything at all that could convey what would go through someone’s mind when they were so hungry for a better life that they would take this terrible risk to go get on a ship to go somewhere that may not even exist,” he said.

Though Penland may not be able to convey those feelings in words, the songs he sings, like “Pretty Saro,” tell the stories of those long-ago Scots who gave up everything to pursue their dreams in America.

It's not the long journey I'm dreading to go
Nor leaving of this country for the debts that I owe;
There is but one thing that troubles my mind,
That's a-leaving pretty Saro, my true love, behind.

“They left everything that they knew, their parents, their friends, their land, all their acquaintances, their whole frame of reference. They just walked away from it, and the only thing they had to bring with them was stories and songs,” he said.

Music is much more than entertainment, he said. It is a form of communication that lays bare the soul and ties people together across generations and cultures and oceans.

“When a person is able to open up and sing from that place deep inside, it’s a wonderful gift and it transports the person listening to another place and time. If a person can let that part of their soul escape through music, it’s just amazing,” he said.

He said it is easy to see how people in difficult circumstances would have relied on music to tell their stories and leave their marks on the world.

“Everybody has a need to be swept away,” he said. “Music and stories are the ultimate escape for us; they are ways that we can express ourselves outside of our human condition.”

Mars Hill College has a longstanding commitment to preserving and celebrating the music of the Southern Appalachian region. Dr. Karen Paar, Director of Mars Hill College’s Ramsey Center for Regional Studies, believes that is why the college was chosen to host New Harmonies.

“We are fortunate to live in an area where traditional Appalachian music continues to be preserved and performed,” Paar said. “Mars Hill College has long worked in partnership with the region to safeguard this strong and vital form of roots music. Hosting this exhibit continues that important work.”

According to Paar, this year’s Lunsford Festival, set for October 2, and now in its 43rd year, will be one in a lineup of events and performances that will bring the public into contact with the New Harmonies exhibit and introduce them to various kinds of roots music.

New Harmonies tells the American musical story through photographs, instruments, lyrics and artist profiles. The exhibition explores the work of well-known folk, gospel, country and blues artists who have inspired generations of musicians, like Ma Rainey, B.B. King, Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Mahalia Jackson, Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez, and captures the spirit of musical styles that are at the heart of local heritage in the United States—Tejano, zydeco, polka, Cajun, conjunto and klezmer. New Harmonies focuses on how roots music gives Americans a soundtrack and a voice for their stories.

An exhibition honoring Madison County music traditions will complement New Harmonies and feature the rich music collections in Mars Hill College’s Southern Appalachian Archives, including the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection. In addition, the centerpiece of the New Harmonies activities will be the 2010 Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival, held each year on the campus, within feet of Lunsford’s birthplace.

Six sites in North Carolina were chosen to host New Harmonies, beginning in March of 2010. By the time it arrives in Mars Hill, the New Harmonies exhibit will have spent time at Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, Warren County Memorial Library, the Museum of Albemarle and the Arts Council of Wayne County. In November, after it leaves Mars Hill, the exhibit will move to Don Gibson Theatre in Shelby.

“Whether through school groups or through family groups, we really hope that as many people in the region as possible will take advantage of the New Harmonies exhibit,” Paar said. “How often do you or your children get to see a Smithsonian-quality exhibit without ever leaving western North Carolina?”

                                Student.Go program

This year more than 40 students will serve around the world, working alongside Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel and Fellowship partners. Abarry Clubb, a native of Mars Hill, N.C., will serve in Washington, D.C., this summer with Student.Go. Clubb is a student at Mars Hill College, Mars Hill, N.C.

Clubb will work alongside National Baptist Memorial Church in Washington, D.C. to lead a summer day camp program for neighborhood children.

Through the Fellowship’s Student.Go program, undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to spend a summer or semester involved in hands-on missions. Students serve around the world – from U.S. locations such as Arkansas, Miami and New York to international locations such as Africa, India and Slovakia. As extensions of the local church, CBF field personnel living in these locations provide opportunities for students to participate in holistic ministries.

“Students fill vital needs on the field,” said Amy Derrick, the Fellowship’s missional church specialist. “There are ministries that simply would not happen if these students were not there. We are amazed every year at the ways that God uses summer and semester Student.Go personnel in the lives of those with whom they minister. But we are equally amazed at how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of the students through these experiences.”

Student.Go provides a $1,000 stipend, secondary insurance, room and board and local transportation at the ministry site. For more information visit www.studentdotgo.org http://www.destinationmissions.org/or contact Derrick at aderrick@thefellowship.info.

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.