by Matt Hughes
J-E News Editor
For the first time the Kentucky Humanities Council is bringing it’s Chautauqua program to Webster County. Since its inception in 1992, Kentucky Chautauqua has brought to life nearly 70 people from Kentucky’s past - both famous and unknown.
The Webster County Historical Society will welcome the Chautauqua performance to the Dixon Community Center at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday September 19, 2013.
Chautauqua performers travel throughout the state delivering to community organizations their historically accurate dramatizations of Kentuckians who made a difference. The cast of characters currently include 28 different personas, ranging from Reverend Newton Bush’s struggle for freedom and Pee Wee Reese’s storied career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, to the troubled life of Mary Todd Lincoln and the music of Grandpa Jones.
The Webster County Performance will feature Sandy Harmon, a Webster County native, who will be portraying Lily May Ledford.
Ledford, a native of Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, traveled to Chicago in 1936, to perform on WLS Radio’s National Barn Dance. The following year her manager assembled a string band called the Coon Creek Girls, featuring Ledford’s distinctive banjo style.
In 1939, the group began an eighteen-year run on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio show. That same year they played at the White House for President and Mrs. Roosevelt and their guests, the King and Queen of England.
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