2024 Azalea Storytelling Festival

Between the two final performances on Sunday the four headliners posed for pictures. L-R: Regi Carpenter, Bil Lepp, Paul Strickland, and Donald Davis.

Sheila and I spent the weekend in Lagrange for the Azalea Storytelling Festival. It is always a great show. We stayed at the Comfort Inn of Lafayette Parkway. Panther Drive is closed by construction around the railroad overpass, so Siri directed us on a circuitous southern route from the hotel to Callaway Auditorium, though we eventually realized is was at least easier and probably quicker to drive straight through from the hotel to Park and then to Dallas -- two turns.

Josh Goforth, one of our favorite musician/tellers came down with civid on Wednesday and the festival folks had to scurry to find a last minute replacement to join Regi Carpenter, Bil Lepp, and Donald Davis as the fourth teller. Guess who they came up with?! Our buddy the 2019 Big Fibber himself, Paul Strickland. This was the first time we had heard Paul as a headliner and he acquitted himself well. 

A plaque commemorating the three Azalea SF founders. I never knew Pat or Evelyn, but Pat's husband is our friend Sidney Gay. And Joyce Morgan we have come to admire not only as one of the prime organizers of the festival but also of the annual Donald Davis summer storytelling workshop in Lagrange. Sheila gave me that workshop as my 70th birthday present in 2017.

I have attended ten or more of the ASFs so far I imagine, and Sheila has accompanied me several times. It is a great festival. During my times at the festival they have always featured four nationally respected storytellers. Donald Davis seems to almost always be there. Bil Lepp makes it about every other year or so. Regi was the original newbie for the festival this year, but Josh's illness meant there were two newbies this year. I rate this one among my favorites. 

On Saturdays there is always a soup lunch at Belvue, the beautiful antebellum home of Georgia's Senator Ben Hill. We almost always participate. Here are a few pictures from that gorgeous historic building.

At the ASF the Callaway auditorium is a wonderful place to hear stories. First, you always hear them. The sound system is great. The upholstered seats are comfortable. The emcee (always in recent years our friend Carol Cain -- except when she is a headliner herself) is entertaining BUT keeps it short and makes sure the spotlight on the tellers and not herself. 

I took notes so I could write up some lists of stories told and favorite lines each day. Unfortunately by the time we got back to the hotel each evening the bed beckoned the old bones. I hope I get back this to jot something about the stories and the tellers. But this'll have to do for now.