10/19/98

L-R: Alice Loftin and Sally Causey

Tennessee Humanities Council to Support Tusculum Oral History Project

The Tennessee Humanities Council has awarded a Tusculum College professor, Dr. Alice Loftin, a $12,765 grant to fund a community project to collect oral history and create works of literature based on the collected stories.

The project will involve volunteers from the community who will attend workshops on both the collection of oral history and on creative writing. After volunteers are selected, they will begin collecting stories next spring and summer and will prepare the finished works for presentation in a series of "Dinners on the Land" in the fall and early winter of 1999.

"This project has a strong public education component," explained Loftin, who will serve as co-director of the project. "What we are hoping to do is consider Greene County as a case study in a pattern that is common in Appalachia. Our economy has been agricultural. In a very few years, we are transforming to an industrial base. In other places where this pattern has occurred, some things were gained from the shift, but so much else was lost. What we want to do is help collect some of the stories of the land that may be lost in the transition and at the same time give voice to as many people as possible as we think about what we want our community to be like."

Joining the Tennessee Humanities Council in support of the project is Rural Resources, a local not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving rural life. The organization will match the Tennessee Humanities Council Grant with an in-kind contribution by providing office support and staff release time. Sally Causey, director of Rural Resources, will serve as co-director of the oral history project.

Joining the co-directors in administering the project is a steering committee comprised of Greene County residents as a well as students at area universities. Participants are Patsy Barger of Greeneville High School; Judy Breckenridge of the Greeneville Sun; Causey and Watt Childress of Rural Resources; Lisa Cox, a student at ETSU; Brian Cutshall of WSMG Radio; Jonas Hayes, a senior at Tusculum College; and Lindsey King, a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee.

Loftin is particularly excited about the "Dinners on the Land," which will conclude the project. The dinners will be held at sites throughout Greene County and will feature locally grown food to accompany the locally collected and created stories. "We will bring the collectors together with the source people and use the stories as a springboard to discuss what we want the county's future will be," Loftin said. The group will also provide information packets on how to get involved in county and city planning.

While the steering committee is in place for the project, Loftin and others are searching for individuals who would like to serve as oral history researchers and writers. Anyone who is interested in participating to contact Alice Loftin at 423-636-7300 or Sally Causey at 423-636-8171. Volunteers will participate in two training sessions and will begin collecting stories in the spring. Loftin estimates that each volunteer will do four or five interviews apiece.