April 13, 2007

Kathryn Tucker Windham, Southern Eloquence in Storytelling



HANCEVILLE, Ala.-Kathryn Tucker Windham captivated a full house of
students and community members with her storytelling on Thursday at the
Wallace State Student Center. The event, arranged by the Wallace State
English Department, was the fifth in a Cultural Arts Week series that
culminates on Sunday.

For almost an hour alone on the stage, Windham, in a voice that is the
definition genteel Southern eloquence, alternated between telling
stories from her own experiences, including the ghost stories for which
she is most famous, and discussing the art of storytelling and the
importance of family.



"It's the most fragile of the arts," Windham said of storytelling. "A
story is never told in the same way, under the same circumstances,
twice. As I talk about my aunt, you are thinking about an aunt of
yours."



"People think they don't have stories to tell," she said. "Everyone has
a story. And stories need to be told."



She credited her ability to gather and tell stories to her years in
investigative journalism, which taught her to go after the facts and get
to the truth. The ghost stories she told on Thursday were more about
understanding a past life than generating fear. "I never tell (ghost)
stories to children without reassuring them," she said.



In fact, her own grandchildren call her "Ghost" instead of
"Grandmother." "That's what they've always called me. And I kind of like
it," Windham said.



According to Windham, families provide a great wealth of stories. "We
don't spend enough time with family anymore," she said. If we fail to
ask our older relatives about their lives, then soon those people and
their stories are lost forever. Memories are lost they are not shared,
she said.



"There is no better way to show someone you love them than to tell them
a story.

Go home and tell a story to someone you love. Don't let tonight come
without telling a story," she said.



Windham is the author of more than two dozen books. She is a playwright,
historian, journalist and photographer. Each year she attends the
Alabama Tale-Telling Festival in Selma, which she founded in 1978, and
she has been regularly featured on National Public Radio. At 89, she
keeps a busy schedule with speaking engagements and continues to write
as her schedule allows. "I do have plans for another book but I'm going
to have to stay home more if I want to write it," she said.

The standing ovation she received and the hundreds of books she
personalized with autographs following the event proved how much she is
loved by people of all ages and how timeless and necessary her stories
remain.



"I still have the book she signed for me more than 20 years ago," said
Mona Hopper, English instructor at Wallace State and one of the event's
organizers.



Hopper hosted a dinner for Windham on Wednesday night with members of
the Wallace State English Department and others in the field.

Cultural Arts Week continues on Friday, April 13, with "Swing into
Spring," an evening of dancing and dining to the big band sound of the
Wallace State Jazz Show Band at 7 p.m. in the banquet hall. A $15
donation is requested.



On Saturday, April 14, the art department will present a juried visual
art exhibition in the James C. Bailey Center foyer from 9 a.m. to noon.
Admission is free. The art exhibition will be open for public viewing
April 10-14.



To close out the week, the Wallace State concert choir will perform its
spring tour bon voyage concert at 3 p.m. on Sunday in the music
department's recital hall for a $5 donation. The group will perform
Franz Josef Haydn's "Missa Sancti Johannes de Deo: Psalms, Hymns and
Spiritual Songs."



For more information about any of the events scheduled for Cultural Arts
Week, call (256) 352-8128 or visit www.wallacestate.edu/events/caw.

Kathryn Tucker Windham event at Wallace State and the book signing that followed.

  Kristen Holmes
  Director, Communications and Marketing
  Wallace State Community College
  P.O. Box 2000
  Hanceville, AL 35077
  256/352-8118
  E-mail: Kristen.Holmes@WallaceState.edu