Old South Day:

Celebrate Your Own Community’s Diverse Heritage

When our school’s Leadership Team decided that each department should sponsor a Theme Day, the English department decided to celebrate our Southern heritage with an Old South Day. When I was a teacher in the Communicative Arts department at Governor’s Honors Program in the 1980s, I had helped sponsor Old South Day to culminate our study of southern literature.

We brainstormed ideas for booths and exhibits and decided to make a big event of it. I made a list of topics associated with southern culture, history, traditions, tales, crafts, etc., and I gave this to my students. Their assignment was to conduct research and write a report on one of the topics I’d given them, then they were to make a presentation, complete with posters, models, visual aids, etc., to the class. The best of the presentations would be given at Old South Day.

Among the topics students were encouraged to research were cotton crops, cows and milk production, gospel music, square dancing, clogging, country music, medicines and folk cures, butter churning, southern crafts, whittling and carving, broom making, soap making, basket weaving, quilts, sourwood honey and beekeeping, washing clothes in an iron pot, antiques, ghost stories and folk tales, music and musical instruments, hunting and guns, blacksmiths, gourds, hog slaughtering, chair caning, planting by the signs,

moonshine, and snakes.

The students’ research and presentations were excellent, and most were excited about the prospect of presenting their research to the public. Some of the other English classes made posters on topics similar to those researched by my students.

A lot of planning went into the success of Old South Day. We advertised for several weeks in the local newspaper, not only informing the public of the upcoming event and inviting everyone to come, but asking for residents to share their own knowledge with the students by setting up displays and making presentations themselves. We had a local educator who is a Civil War reenactor to volunteer to set up a Civil War camp. He dressed as a rebel and his son dressed as a Union soldier, and they brought antique guns, lanterns, and other equipment used during the war. A local beekeeper came and brought the equipment he uses. The aunt of one of our English teachers volunteered to churn butter and to bring antiques. Our former principal brought his hunting dogs, guns, calls, decoys, and other implements.

We used as many students as we could. One had his father to bring a cow we could milk. Many students had never milked a cow before, and quite a few gave it a try. One student had a neighbor who owns a small covered wagon, and he volunteered to give free rides at the event.

We did not charge admission to Old South Day because we wanted as many people as possible to attend. We invited young children from local day care centers and elementary schools to come through early in the morning. Some of our school’s organizations did set up booths as fund-raisers, selling lemonade, homemade ice cream, watermelon, candy, boiled peanuts, RC colas and Moon Pies. It was a great opportunity for some clubs to make a little money.

The most difficult part of Old South Day was actually scheduling the students to come down to the stadium to see the exhibits. We are on the block schedule, and we needed the first block to set up. All of my students, all English teachers, and some of the students in other classes went to the stadium first block to get the booths and exhibits in place. I had the construction shop make some tall wooden stakes which were driven into the ground at intervals to mark off the exhibits. Signs had been made to put on these stakes so that everyone would know where to set up.

We set aside fourth block for a special program, and all students would attend. At this program, we had clogging, square dancing, singing, a recitation of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech, and instrumentals, all featuring country music.

During second and third blocks, students came to the stadium view the exhibits. Our problem was working around lunch during the third block. Some students came to Old South Day twice, but we could not work out any better schedule.

Old South Day was a benefit to our school in that it involved the community and brought out a number of county residents and parents, it was both educational and fun for the students, it gave students an opportunity to showcase their talents, and it gave some students their first taste of true success in the classroom.

1. Civil War Camp

2. Boiled Peanuts

3. Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest

4. Clogging & Square-dancing

5. Log Cabins

6. Lemonade Stand

7. Bake Sale

8. Quilts

9. Basket Weaving

10. Watermelon/Homemade Ice Cream

11. Moonshining

12. Kudzu

13. Dulcimer Making

14. Musical Instruments

15. Cow Milking

16. Butter Churning

17. Guns

18. Turkey Calls

19. Hunting

20. Trapping

21. Saltwater Taffy/Pralines/Peanut Brittle

22. Cockfighting

23. Bee Keeping

24. Indian Relics

25. Home Remedies

26. Art

27. Mule Team

28. Horse & Buggy Ride:

Concession Stand