Voices of the Shenandoah ft. Katie and Kelly

On Friday July 15 at Swover Creek Farms and Brewery Friends celebrated the North Fork again this year with our Voices of the Shenandoah – In Story and Song event. This year featured 6 storytellers and musicians and Katie and Kelly joined us for our featured musicians. 

The event kicked off with a beautiful poem submitted anonymously read by Kathleen Fish, that showcased our summers in the Valley. Next up Tom Stevens took the stage to have us holding back laughter with a tale about a floating trip that went belly up he witnessed. Julia Sargent read a poem submitted by Joan Chapman that was inspired by how our river brought delight and inspiration to one of her Shenandoah Reel Women campers. Barbara Gonzalez provided a voice to a poem from a presenter that could not be there and had everyone intrigued. We welcomed back Kevin Whalen who had us engrossed with songs influenced by his life living near the river. To close out the storytelling portion Kelly from Katie and Kelly presented a lovely poem. 

To keep everyone on their toes we challenged participants to a river-centered pub quiz, testing their knowledge of the North Fork and the watershed, with the winner going home with one of our “cool” Friends water bottles.  We also encouraged event goers to take a peek at our slides inside that showcased rivers facts and how to be involved. 

For the last 2 hours of the evening we were wowed by Katie and Kelly with their covers of Americana Folk music, singing many of the crowd’s favorites. 

The evening was a blast and we were very happy to be back at Swover Creek under their outdoor pavilion taking in the beautiful night, talking with others impacted by the river and enjoying wonderful music. We want to thank all those who attended, our storytellers, musicians and our venue. A BIG thanks to our event sponsors: Bowman-Shannon Grant through the Shenandoah Community Foundation, Regulus Group, Team Abby Walters and Perry Engineering.