Kate Long and Robin Kessinger

January 23, 2009 7:30pm

Kate and Robin have developed a warm, free-flowing storytelling style that weaves music and spoken word with singing. Kate’s moving, funny original songs are little stories in themselves. She and Kessinger also make up original stories about Appalachian oldtime classics like Shady Grove and wrap the stories around fresh versions of the songs. Kessinger mixes his stunning guitar work with funny, insightful stories about his legendary music family. They deliver a fast-paced instrumental, then slow the same tune down into a moving story ballad. While she tells laugh-out-loud stories about a little girl pondering religion and politics, he plays the same story in music. They even deliver a rap song.

Becky Bolte portrays Colonel Ruby G. Bradley

March 14, 2009 7:30pm

Colonel Ruby Bradley, a native of Spencer, WV, was an Army surgical nurse in the Philippines in 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Three weeks later, she and 63 other nurses were captured. They remained prisoners of war for three years. Ruby weighed just 86 pounds when US troops liberated the camp. Five years after returning to a hero’s welcome in West Virginia, she returned to the battlefields as a frontline Army nurse in evacuation hospitals in Korea. In November, 1950 She left Pyongyang, surrounded by thousands of Chinese soldiers, only after loading all sick and wounded soldiers in her care on to the plane, escaping just in time. The ambulance exploded behind her. She left Korea two years later at a send off with an international honor guard, a first for a woman. Her military record included 34 medals and citations of bravery, including two Legion of Merit medals and two Bronze stars. She was finally awarded the rank of colonel in 1958.

Bradley is portrayed by: Becky Bolte