This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen Magazine #99 (April / May 2002). The magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription.

Augusta Heritage Center
Passing it on, one soul at a time
by Dan Willging

"I think our motto in our catalogue this year is going to be 'Leave the world behind,' because that is what people need to do. There are a lot of problems in the world, but what you come here [to] get is not like a vacation where you are just getting away from things, but you are gathering something inside you that is going to nurture you when you get back home."
—Margo Blevin, director

The Augusta Heritage Center, located on the campus of Davis & Elkins College, in Elkins, West Virginia, has been instructing, mentoring, and nurturing roots musicians of all denominations since 1973. Seven times throughout the year, the nonprofit, college-affiliated organization offers a dazzling array of intriguing week-long courses — taught by master musicians, artists, and other experts — that delve into the Center's four main thrusts: music, dance, folk arts, and folklore. Five of those seven theme weeks occur in the summer; another is taught in April (Spring Dulcimer Week) and yet another in the fall (October Old-Time Week.) An impressive 50-page catalogue details the Center's courses, projects, and public activities; the vast scope is mind-boggling. Each year, over 2,000 participants take more than 300 classes ranging from (though not a comprehensive list) traditional music (Appalachian, Cajun-zydeco, guitar, vocals, blues, bluegrass, Irish, swing) and dance (clogging, Irish step dancing, salsa, swing, Cajun, zydeco) to crafts (white oak basketry, instrument repair, stonemasonry) to folklore (herbs, woodslore, history of swing). It has not only become a crown jewel in the rugged Mountaineer State, but the rest of America as well, as Augusta's sensibilities extend far beyond West Virginia's state lines.

Though musicians of all levels profit from Augusta's rich course offerings, a number of yesterday's attendees have become some of today's best roots musicians. A short list would include Kevin Wimmer and Courtney Granger (both of Balfa Toujours), the entire Saffire –The Uppity Blues Women trio, Ginny Hawker, Cary Fridley (Freight Hoppers), up-and-coming zydeco sensation Andre Thierry, blues pianist Arthur Migliazza, and siblings Matt (Footworks dance ensemble) and Aaron (Irish music) Olwell.

Yet, for an institution that has become a role model in both folk music and arts, its origins would make for some stumping trivia fodder. When the Center opened its doors, it was primarily as a crafts-oriented program. A group of elderly Randolph County residents had the foresight to recognize that their traditional crafts like weaving, spinning, caning, and whittling — all cherished skills with which they had grown up — were on the verge of extinction. So the Augusta Heritage Center was founded as a preservation of Appalachian heritage, and the Davis & Elkins College helped jump-start the program. In addition to crafts, the week-long program included a couple of courses in Appalachian music and dance.

Soon thereafter, the local arts council took it over and ran it through its eighth year. Though it blossomed from an inaugural 100 enrollees to 350 by the eighth year, the organization was shaky, at best. Each director would serve an 18-month term, meaning a newly hired director would complete his predecessor's program, run his or her own the following year, and plan another before exiting. Not a lot of continuity, to say the least. The Augusta Heritage Center reached a crisis in 1980 when it went bankrupt due to lack of federal funding. Luckily, Davis & Elkins College understood the program's cultural value and agreed to sponsor the institution until it could become self-sufficient. It was then that the Augusta's current director, Margo Blevin, was hired — a position she still holds today, entering her third decade at the helm.

"My first year, there I was, sink or swim. I had never even taken a class at Augusta. I had just helped as a volunteer with the craft fair," Blevin recalled, still astonished at the incredulity of it all. "So I went into it just cold. In February, there had been no ads, no instructors hired. Nothing printed — nothing. I made a lot of phone calls, saying, 'Should I have...?' I read all the files for the last eight years and got an idea of which instructors the students had liked. I educated myself very quickly, but it was a big, big learning curve. So I pulled together a staff. I did all the publicity and posters. I did the one-page fold-out listing all the classes, very similar to what had been done the year before, except I added a couple of classes. I wanted to add a few things that I thought people might like that hadn't been done before."

This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #99 (Apr./May '02). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.