When I fully retired as senior editor of Community Newspapers, Inc., in April 2015, I wasn’t ready to sit down and sort my socks or glue Popsicle sticks together. I wanted a project. I thought of the Foxfire program of Rabun County, Georgia, where I lived for five years while serving as publisher/editor of The Clayton Tribune, a weekly newspaper. I had served on Foxfire’s community board in the early 1990s and was impressed with the program. For fifty-plus years, hundreds of students in Rabun County have learned valuable skills through Foxfire, which has earned a worldwide reputation, thanks mainly to books and magazines produced by the students themselves.
I visited the Foxfire office on Black Rock Mountain and presented my idea to Ann Moore, then president and executive director of the Foxfire Fund. My proposal was this: I would interview and write stories on people, passions, and practices and compile them for a book, one a bit different from the series Foxfire has published over the years. Ann liked the idea.
In her absence at the next Foxfire board meeting, Barry Stiles, curator of the Foxfire Museum, presented the proposal to board members. The board gave a thumbs-up. Jessica Phillips, then a student at Rabun County High School, was chosen to work with me on the project. This bright young woman did as many interviews as she could work into her busy schedule. I did the rest, gathering stories from five states: Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
You are holding the final product in your hands. It was a lot of work, but, if you’ll excuse the cliché, it was a labor of love. Jessica and I interviewed hunters, folk artists, herbs gatherers, musicians, songwriters, historians, farmers, former moonshiners, water dowsers, stock car racers, television executives, authors, storytellers, cooks, a genealogist, a professor, a mule collector, and even an expert on outhouses. And there were others. We met some interesting people, believe me.
We have a lot of people to thank, some for reading and offering suggestions, some for story ideas, some for encouragement. First, of course, we thank Ann Moore, Barry Stiles, and T. J. Smith, now director of Foxfire; editor Kaye Collins, and members of the Foxfire board for giving Jessica and me this opportunity. Without them, this book would still be only a dream. I’d also like to thank editor Tom Pold and Penguin Random House for oversight and publication.
All proceeds from book sales, by the way, go to Foxfire.
Others deserving our thanks include: Johnny Vardeman, Ken Hudgins, Myles Godfrey, Emory Jones, Sharon Hall, cartoonist Jim Powell, Joy Phillips, Teddi Heck, Joseph “Doc” Johnson, Jack Ogle, Tommy Bowers, Jack Frost, Don Elrod, Barbara McRae, George Thompson, and The Times of Gainesville, Georgia.
I’d also like to thank my wife, Shirley, for putting up with my obsession with this book.