Music & Arts

FRIES — The Fries Volunteer Fire Department, organizers of the 46th Annual Fries Fiddlers Convention, have released the winners of the event, held earlier this month at the town’s ball field.
Tony Hicks won the Jesse Lovell Memorial Trophy for best youth guitar.
Victor Furtado won the Houston Caldwell Memorial Trophy for best all-around youth performer.
Tommy Nichols won the Henry Whitter Memorial Trophy for best all-around performer.

Youth Competition Winners
(beginning with first place)

For more than 47 years, 81-year-old bluegrass legend Roger Sprung has graced Galax and the Old Fiddlers’ Convention with his presence.
The banjo master travels from Newtown, Conn., making a stop at the Clifftop Festival in West Virginia before stopping in Galax each year.
Sitting at his own spot behind the convention stage, suspended letters above his tent announce “SPRUNG IS HERE.”
A cardboard sign written in black marker indicates a schedule of jam sessions at his campsite.

To those who attend the Old Fiddlers’ Convention, Galax isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind.
When they say, “Do you remember that jam in the handicapped Porta-John at Galax?” they don’t mean the city, they mean the event.
(They not only once had a full band in the Porta-John, they also had dancers.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Southwest Virginia’s ‘Round the Mountain (RTM) artisan network has been awarded a competitive grant of $815,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Appalachian Regional Commission.
The innovation grant was awarded to Appalachian Spring, a creative economy initiative through the Friends of Southwest Virginia in partnership with the region’s planning district commissions, People Inc. and Virginia Community Capital, according to a press release from U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA).