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Today’s Email Announcements

1) Grants Available for Bird Research Through Audubon Society

High Country Audubon Society is pleased to announce a grant opportunity to support bird research in the High Country of North Carolina.  HCAS is the local chapter of the National Audubon Society and Audubon North Carolina, serving Watauga, Ashe, Wilkes, Alleghany and Avery counties.

 The Sue Wells Research Grant will award up to $500 to a high school or college student to support research or field work in ornithology, or in an area of study that will directly benefit birds or bird habitat in this area of North Carolina.  Only undergraduate or graduate students currently enrolled in degree-seeking programs or high school students may apply.

 The Sue Wells Research Grant was created in 2012 to support local students involved in bird research in the High Country.  The first award went to Jessica Krippel, a Master of Science student at Western Carolina University. Jessica used her grant to support her research of song sparrow mating success.

In 2013 HCAS selected Morgan Harris, a graduate student at Appalachian State University, as the recipient of the Sue Wells Research Grant. Morgan looked at reproductive pressures on local eastern bluebirds resulting from tree swallows moving into their territories.

Appalachian State University student Angela Langevin was selected in 2014 and will be studying the interactions of the Western North Carolina cliff-nesting avian community with the cliff-face ecosystem they inhabit. She is a graduate student in ASU’s Biology program.

 The late Sue Wells was a driving force in the creation of High Country Audubon Society and served on the Board of Trustees until 2010.  Sue was also instrumental in creating the National Bird-Feeding Society and led the movement to help make backyard bird feeding the successful hobby it is today.

Grant information and application are available at http://www.highcountryaudubon.org/suewellsresearchgrant.html.

Applications are due by June 30 and the winner will be announced by mid-July at the HCAS annual membership meeting.

2) Violin Recital with Maura Shawn Scanlin at ASU on Friday

Maura Scanlin will be performing a free violin recital at the Appalachian State University Hayes School of Music Recital Hall at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 5. Scanlin grew up in Watuaga County and is now a student at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts.  The concert will include solo violin works by Bach and Ysaye as well as traditional and original compositions accompanied by guitarist Craig Dubose.  The recital is free and open to the public.

Maura Shawn began her violin studies at the age of three with Nan Stricklen of Banner Elk.  She later became a student of Dr. Nancy Bargerstock at the Hayes School of Music at ASU where she also played in the ASU Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. She attended high school at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem studying with Sarah Johnson. She currently is a rising junior at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston studying with Lucy Chapman. At NEC she is a member of several ensembles in both the classical and contemporary improvisation departments.

Maura Shawn has won numerous state and national awards and has appeared as a soloist with the Charlotte Youth Symphony and the Asheville Symphony. She has also served as concertmaster of the NC Western Region and the NC All-State Honors Orchestras. She has won both U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Championship and the Glenfiddich Fiddle Competition in Pitlochry, Scotland.

Her summers have been spent at various music programs and festivals including: The Eastern Music Festival, Green Mountain Chamber Music
Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Yellow Barn and the Round Top Festival Institute. This summer she will attend the Heifetz International Music Festival in Staunton, Virginia.She is a member of the local Celtic band the Forget-Me-Nots and will be performing later this month with the group at Lost Province Restaurant in Boone. In the greater Boston area she plays with two groups, one featuring original contemporary folk music (Skim) and the other original Celtic-inspired music.

3) Weekend Programs on the Blue Ridge Parkway

SAT. JUNE 6: Upstairs Tours at Cone Manor, MP 294. 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m.: Ranger-led tours of the second floor of the former home of Moses and Bertha Cone. Tour is approximately 45 minutes long and reservations are required. To reserve a tour, call 828-295-3782. Reservations are accepted beginning at 10 a.m. on Friday for the upcoming weekend only. No advance reservations.

SAT. JUNE 6: The Misunderstood Marsupial, MP 296 at Julian Price Campground Amphitheater, 7 p.m. What is as old as a dinosaur, as small as a cat and calls the Blue Ridge Parkway home? Join a ranger to find out. Approximately 45 minutes long.

SUN. JUNE 7: Upstairs Tours at Cone Manor, MP 294. 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m.: Ranger-led tours of the second floor of the former home of Moses and Bertha Cone. Tour is approximately 45 minutes long and reservations are required. To reserve a tour, call 828-295-3782. Reservations are accepted beginning at 10 a.m. on Friday for the upcoming weekend only. No advance reservations.

4) See The Theory of Everything at the Public Library on June 8

High Country Lifelong Learners in association with the Watauga County Public Library invite you to join us for a movie viewing of The Theory of Everything on June 8 from 2-4:30 p.m.

In the 1960s, Cambridge University student and future physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) falls in love with fellow collegian Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). At 21, Hawking learns that he has motor neuron disease. Despite this — and with Jane at his side — he begins an ambitious study of time, of which he has very little left, according to his doctor. He and Jane defy terrible odds and break new ground in the fields of medicine and science, achieving more than either could hope to imagine. Eddie Redmayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

This film has an MPAA rating of PG-13 and an approximate run-time of 123 minutes.

For more information please email high.country.lifelong@gmail.com, Attention: Deb Gooch.

5) See Inherit the Wind and Join Movie Discussion at the Public Library on June 11

The Watauga County Public Library’s movie discussion group invites you to join us for a viewing of Inherit The Wind on June 11 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Director Stanley Kramer’s 1960 adaptation of Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s play Inherit The Wind is a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes ”Monkey” Trial, which resulted in John T. Scopes’s conviction for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law.

This film has an MPAA rating of PG and an approximate run-time of 128 minutes.

For more information please call 828-264-8784 ext. 2.

6) Organ Recital and Evensong at St. Mary of the Hills on Sunday

A recital showcasing the Lively-Fulcher organ at St. Mary of the Hills in Blowing Rock, given by noted organist Joseph Causby, will precede the service of Evensong this Sunday, June 7 in the nave of the church.  The recital begins at 3 p.m. and Evensong at 3:30 p.m.

Mr. Causby has chosen three pieces for his recital – Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 547;  Franck’s  Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18, and Psalm Prelude, Set 1, No. 3 by Herbert Howells.

Causby is Director of Music and Organist at historic St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas. He was the first American organ scholar of Durham Cathedral (2008-2009), and holds a BMus in organ performance and sacred music from Appalachian State University and an MMus in organ performance from Rice University.  He has recently completed his PhD from the University of Durham (England), with a dissertation on Thomas Tertius Noble, under the supervision of leading British scholar, Professor Jeremy Dibble.  His most recent organ study has been with Dame Gillian Weir and Wilma Jensen.

The choir of St. Mary’s sings Evensong one Sunday each month through October, and everyone is welcome. The choir is currently preparing for it’s biennial sojourn in the U.K. where it will be the choir in residence at Durham Cathedral for a week this summer, singing daily evensong and Sunday morning services.  Service music for the June 7 Evensong will include the Standford in G Magnificat and Nunc dimittis and the Clucas Preces and Responses, and the anthem will be Like as the hart by Howells.

For more information on this service, please contact St. Mary of the Hills at 828-295-7323.

7) Weekly Events at Lost Province Brewing Co.

TUES: Cheap date night at Lost Province. Dinner for two for only $25 6-10 p.m.

THURS: $3 Thursday: $3 pints on all Lost Province brewed beers (except high gravity). Live Music 8-10 p.m. with Klee Liles. One half of the Klee and Mike Show, Klee Liles will be performing at Lost Province Thursday, June 4th. Come join us for great music, food and of course, beer. Klee lives in Boone, NC, plays guitar and sings, all while rocking one of an impressive collection of patterned short-sleeve shirts.

FRI: Freakin’ Firkin Friday at Five continues with a Firkin of Sour Cherry Saison. Live Music 8 p.m. to closing with Lazybirds.Lazybirds is a classic American band with roots in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Formed in 1996, the quartet began by immersing into the old forgotten styles of blues, jazz, country, and ragtime that had been the soundtrack of the American underground several decades earlier. The band quickly developed a reputation in the High Country for playing music that touches people at their core in a way that hearkens back to a time when music was more closely intertwined with nature. With Mitchell Johnston on stand up bass and vocals, James T. Browne on drums and vocals, Jay Brown on guitar, harmonica and vocals, and Alfred Michels on fiddle and guitar, Lazybirds have created a sound that is all their own, at once familiar and original.

SAT: Brunch at 10 a.m. Live Music 8 p.m. to closing with Tin Can Alley. Classic soul and R&B from the 1960’s.

SUN. Brunch at 10 a.m. Lost Province Sunday: Residents of “The Lost Province” (Watauga, Ashe, Avery and Alleghany) receive 10 percent off food with verification of residency.