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Letter writer: Park deserves credit for Old Farmer’s Ball

In the recent article about the regional conference of SERFA (The Southeast Regional Folk Alliance), “Work Hard, Play Hard: SERFA Conference Looks at the Craft and Business of Folk Music” [May 11, Xpress], the [article] incorrectly states that I “started the Old Farmer’s Ball,” the weekly contra dance that currently takes place on the campus of Warren Wilson College.

Fred Park, not I, was the founder of this long-standing popular event, and he deserves credit for it. When Fred initiated this weekly dance in the fall of 1982, I was one of four local dance callers he enlisted to help launch it. The other three were Peter Gott, Bob Thompson and Dudley Culp. Initially, the dance was held in the old white dance hall along the Warren Wilson Road, but it moved to Warren Wilson in 1993, following the big blizzard of that year.

— Phil Jamison
Asheville

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