The abundance of folk and traditional arts in Central Appalachia must be preserved and accessible to future generations. To ensure that the lives, lessons, and stories of tradition bearers are kept and documented, South Arts has developed a team of documenters who will make record of this work. In the future, the material developed through ‘In These Mountains’ will be made available through university libraries, cultural organizations, and archives throughout the South.
A sample of the documentation conducted by our team is below:
Minuette Floyd is a professor of Art Education at the University of South Carolina in the School of Visual Art and Design. She is also the director of the Young Artist’s Workshop, a community visual art program for children 5-18 years of age. Her research interests focus on multicultural art education, interdisciplinary art instruction, and documentation of folk traditions. Grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the South Carolina Humanities Council, and the South Carolina Arts Commission enabled her to compile a photographic documentary of African American camp meetings. This ethnographic research has been published as a book entitled A Place To Worship: African American Camp Meetings in the Carolinas. She continues to document this tradition and is working on future publications.
Nicole Musgrave is an independent folklorist and media producer based in Whitesburg, Kentucky. She currently serves as a folkways reporter for West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia. Recently, she worked with Partners for Education at Berea College, conducting over 80 interviews with educators, parents, and students to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected schooling, and how it’s affected students’ learning and development. Prior to the pandemic, Nicole served as the folklife specialist for Hindman Settlement School where she worked with teachers and teaching artists to develop and implement arts- and culture-based programming in schools. She has also conducted fieldwork for organizations such as Appalshop, the Kentucky Folklife Program, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Appalachian Artisan Center. She holds her MA in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University.
Stacey Horton started as a graduate research assistant with ETSU and their partner, South Arts, in January of 2024. She is currently a graduate student in the Appalachian Studies program, pursuing her certificate in Archival Studies. Before becoming a full time grad student, Stacey was a middle school English teacher in both Bristol, Tennessee, and Berettyóújfalu, Hungary. When she is not working on collecting interviews for the “In These Mountains” initiative or working on her graduate thesis, she can be found in Abingdon, Virginia, with her friends and family, probably looking for a new walking ghost tour.
Caleb Brown is a multimedia creative from Guatemala City, Guatemala by way of Asheville, North Carolina. He is currently pursuing undergraduate degrees in Commercial Photography and Sustainable Development and a master’s degree in Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. He recently had a photo gallery exhibition – entitled Donde Se Sostienen Los Raíces / Where Our Roots Lie – centered around how Latino culture intersects with place-based thinking in Appalachia. Beyond his exhibition, Caleb aims to uplift the voices of his fellow Latinos throughout Appalachia in his documentary work, as he believes that their stories are paramount to understanding the region.
Sammy Osmond is a documentary filmmaker and graduate student in the Appalachian Studies Department at Appalachian State University, in his hometown of Boone, North Carolina. He received an undergraduate degree in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, where his work focused on creating intimate documentary profiles of exceptional individuals who were often overlooked. He believes that fascinating stories are embedded in people all around us and carries a sense of healthy curiosity with him into every new situation. In his free time, you can find him playing banjo, bouldering at his local gym, or striking up a friendly conversation with anyone he meets. 
Victoria Hewlett is a grant writer and community organizer from northeast Tennessee. She is studying for her MA in Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee University, where she is writing a thesis on the landscape of grant seeking for food system-focused non-profit organizations in central Appalachia. She lives in Johnson City, Tennessee with her husband and their two children. 
Caitlyn Sheets is a Folk Studies graduate student at Western Kentucky University, focusing on Museum Studies. She is currently based in Bowling Green, KY, but calls Hedgesville, WV, home. While in her undergraduate studies at Shepherd University, she majored in English Literature with a double minor in Appalachian Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies. Caitlyn is passionate about equality and equity in the Appalachian region, specifically for the Queer community. She has been the editor for the Anthology of Appalachian Writers: Karen Spears Zacharias Volume XI (2018, Shepherd University) and sat on the Writer-in-Residence Committee that created the Appalachian Studies M.A. at Shepherd University. She also was a part of the oral history project “Hear This!” produced by SAIL in Shepherdstown, WV, fostering intergenerational storytelling between community members and students at the nearby university. Caitlyn states, “What really drives me is the fact that so many people have helped me in my life to get here… I just want to give back to not just those people but to anybody else who needs it."
Amanda grew up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Knoxville, TN. It was here she became passionate about folk music at a young age. At 14 she began her education in Irish fiddle music. The connection between the music of the Appalachian Mountains and the hills of Ireland captured her imagination and inspired her to pursue a master’s degree in Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. The popular Bluegrass program offered at ETSU and field work for the In These Mountains initiative gives her the ability to further explore this connection through conversations with musicians of the Appalachian and Irish traditions and expanding her understanding of the rich musical tradition of the Appalachian Mountains. In her spare time, Amanda plays fiddle in the Bristol-based Irish band, Sigean (she-gen).
Bailey Clayton is a senior History student at Mars Hill University in Mars Hill, North Carolina. He is also a fourth-year dancer on the collegiate clogging team, the Bailey Mountain Cloggers. With the team, he has experienced many cultures of the world through travel and dance, representing the United States in multiple cultural festivals, including travelling to Colombia, South America, the Netherlands, the Azores Islands in Portugal, and Ireland. He has also been a part of four of the team’s twenty-eight national titles and has won five national championships in solo competition for flatfoot, traditional, contemporary, and overall male clogging. For his In These Mountains research, he is conducting oral history interviews related to the history of the Bailey Mountain Cloggers. He is especially interested in how the team has upheld Appalachian dance traditions.
Stacey Keruwa is from Papua New Guinea, an island in the South Pacific. Her hometown is in Mt. Hagen, Western Highlands Province. She graduated high school from Ukarumpa International School located in the Eastern Highlands Province of the country. Her major is Agriculture and Natural Resources with double minors in Economics & Sustainability and Environmental Studies. She works at Berea College's Hutchin's Library as a Building Manager and Reference Desk Associate that enables her to work with both staff and with patrons. She helps to ensure that the library is running safely and smoothly when librarians are not present, as well as to help assist patrons with their research inquiries. She is very interested in preserving people's cultures and traditions. Where she comes from most of the culture and traditions for centuries have been passed down orally or through storytelling, and because of that there are not a lot of documentations or mediums to help preserve them for future generations. She wants to gain experience in learning how to become a better researcher and fieldworker through the South Arts internship in order to help preserve the past. She enjoys watching sunsets and sunrises, hiking, traveling, long walks on the beach, baking, reading, looking at cute dog pictures, and playing or watching soccer.
Shaylan Clark is a 23-year-old Black filmmaker from Harlan, Kentucky. She is currently a Communication student at Berea College, focusing on Broadcast Journalism. She is passionate about filmmaking and raising awareness about issues that affect the people of Appalachia. She interned with the Appalachian Media Institute for three years and in her first year she made a documentary that discussed Black Lung disease called Dying Breed. Shaylan created this film in hopes of educating people on what Black Lung is and how it effects the health of coal miners. Her second film discussed the lack of sexual education in rural communities, in partnership with All Access EKY. Shaylan has also worked with the community theater project Higher Ground since 2014, helping to gather stories, create scripts, and portray complex Appalachian characters. Shaylan hopes to continue educating others in creative ways toward a positive impact on her community.
Colby Bigham is a junior at Berea College, majoring in English with minors in Creative Writing and Appalachian Studies. She calls Maryville and Knoxville, Tennessee home. While in high school, Colby also became a representative in her cosmetology program, winning second place at state during her junior and senior years. One of her biggest accomplishments has been travelling with other classmates on a trip to Ireland as a way of exploring their creative writing abilities, this internship being another. Colby has many plans for the future, the most prominent being her desire to make positive change in the Appalachian region.
Jesse Barber is a documentary photographer based in the Appalachian region of western North Carolina. His work focuses on rural community and the importance of traditional values and relationships with labor and religion on the culture of these communities. He is passionate about using photography to bridge gaps, awaken new perspectives, and expand understanding of community. He has worked with people collecting stories from mill village workers in rural North Carolina to Mayan coffee farmers in Guatemala. Through his experiences, he has gained knowledge as a photographer and storyteller. Growing up in the rural South, he has a first-hand perspective of the small communities that draw meaning out of life.
The In These Mountains Initiative means a great deal to me because discussions of Appalachia are becoming increasingly more nuanced, considering a wider breadth of diverse narratives that reflect the region’s realities. This project reflects that. As someone who is both from the region and studying it, being a part of this work and engaging in dialogue with all types of Appalachian folks is an incredible opportunity.
Theresa Osborne is a native Kentuckian. As the daughter of a Methodist minister, she has lived all over the state but finally settled in Harlan County, Kentucky. She began her career as a photojournalist. As an award-winning journalist, she has always loved meeting new people and discovering their stories. Theresa left the field of community newspapers and began working for Southeast Community College in 1997 where she worked for more than 20 years as part of the college’s Appalachian Program before retiring in June 2020.
Timi Reedy is a mycologist and ecofeminist homesteader in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, and she has been a volunteer with Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) since the 1990s. In 1996, she helped conduct an ASPI video oral history project gathering stories from Appalachian people over 65 and their memories of the forest. As part of this project, she conducted two interviews with her grandmother, one about the forest in Eastern Kentucky where she grew up and another on her music career. She currently serves as the board president and ASPI Service-Learning Coordinator.