CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Winter 2020 issue of GOLDENSEAL is now available. It covers a wide range of stories about West Virginia history and culture from across the state. Since 1975, GOLDENSEAL has been West Virginia’s Magazine of Traditional Life.
This issue’s cover story is dedicated to dancer, artist, author and teacher Jude Binder of Calhoun County. The article, written by Douglas John Imbrogno, highlights Jude’s work with children in central West Virginia as part of Heartwood in the Hills, a school for the arts she founded in 1982. For nearly 40 years, she’s inspired young people to discover the excitement of the arts and to live out their dreams, wherever those dreams may lead them.
Other articles examine the Mountain Craft Shop, “Wetzel County’s only amusement park,” in the words of owner and chief toymaker Steve Conlon (by Zack Harold); apple butter making, a family tradition in Hampshire County (by Tina Ladd); a little house with a lot of special memories on the campus of Shepherd University (by Carl E. Feather); the fight for women’s suffrage in the Mountain State (by Christine M. Kreiser); Raleigh County’s mysterious Ferguson Rock (by Merle T. Cole and Tom Sopher); tributes to the old WVU Field House in Morgantown (by Norman Julian) and growing up listening to Mountaineer basketball on radio (by John A. Hunter Jr.); the burning of the state capitol in January 1921 (by Stan Bumgardner); the poem “The Many Mamaw Melitas Who Raised Us (by Andréa Fekete); doodlebugging in Barbour County (by David Ball); the life of teacher and farmer Jack Corder of Doddridge County (by C. Lee Corder); a virtual tour in and around the Preston County town of Aurora (by Donetta Sisler); and a visit with scrap-metal artists Ken and Joy Sinsel of Hancock County (by Carl E. Feather).
In this issue, GOLDENSEAL also honors West Virginians in the fields of history and arts who we lost in 2020. State folklorist Emily Hilliard writes a moving tribute to Lincoln County’s Elaine Purkey, a folk singer, labor songwriter and teacher who touched countless lives.
GOLDENSEAL is published quarterly by the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History. You can order copies from GOLDENSEAL’s online store or call 304-558-0220, ext. 134. Individual copies are $5.95/issue + $1.00 shipping, or you can order subscriptions for one year ($20), two years ($36), or three years ($50).
GOLDENSEAL Magazine can be purchased at Blackwater Falls State Park, Tucker County.
