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Hello again, Friends! 

This weekend's October Sky Fall Festival is sneaking in like one of them there Yankee Clippers, as my Granny said...'course, Granny was a true Daughter of the South and never did forgive those boys in blue for messing up the petunias.

Here is a fairly comprehensive listing of the participants in the October Sky Fall Festival. As you can see, it is a whopper! If you can't find something to do, eat, listen to, participate in, laugh with admire, adore, revel in, stand in awe of, well, then you may just need to jump down the well head first and end your unmitigated misery...

Here is the 2010 list of participants in the festival. Although comprehensive, this list is subject to change and is bound to grow before the weekend.
 
Food Vendors
1. Dave's Dog House (quality dogs, no fillers, his parents were missionaries with local connection, Cookie Murphy found while interviewing him last year, she died before she could publish the story for our news letter) 
2. Dan & Dee's Country Shack (complete menu)
3. Jazzy's Cotton Candy & Funnel Cakes
4. Oliver Springs Church of Christ (home made breads)
5. Sparky's Kettle Corn
6. BBQ ( I will send you the business name as soon as her papers come in)
7. Cove Road Baptist Church (cornbread & beans)
[there are several applications that are still pending I know we will have more, I'm trying to limit vendor of similar foods 
to ensure a big variety, and each vendor to make a profit}
 
 
Craft Vendors
1. Barbara Russell ( Crafts & handmade dolls)
2. Priceless Gifts  (sand art, hand painted gifts, henna tattoos’)
3. Doris Mauk (hand turned wooden pens, crochet rugs, purses, doilies, afghans hats ect, )
4. Dixie Home Crafters 
5. Creative Crafts (Hand made beaded jewelry)
6. Suzanne Hull (Crafter)
7. Jim McBrayer (Crafts)
8. Craft Macaroni & Paper (Halloween & Christmas crafts, cards, candles ect)
9. Johnny Howard (bird houses, wood working, quilting)
10. Paradise Jewelry (hand made jewelry)
11. Wanda Hyatt (Knitted items & Wood working)
12. Lone Wolf Studios (John Selsor- Stained glass and heirloom quality wood toys)
13. Jenny Wampler
14. Pat Buhl (unique hand made jewelry/ stone slices & ore specimens)
15. Pete Manouse (t-shirts. signs, pins stickers)
16. Tennessee Naturescapes (Native Tennessee plants) lorimcalister10@yahoo.com
17. Colby's Prospecting ( selling bags of sand from a mine in the Carolinas, then showing you how to pan and find the gold)
         rodco37@yahoo.com
18. Marsha Brown (Wickless Candles)
19. Oliver Springs Historical Society Country Store (crafts, home made jams & relishes, natural lotions, woodcrafts, trash to treasure items,
        home baked cakes and candies, tee-shirts, calendars w/historic pictures of Oliver Springs, pecans and much more)
 
 
 
Miscellaneous Activities
 
Author and “Rocket Boys” extra B2010 list of participants in the festival
 
Food Vendors
1. Dave's Dog House (quality dogs, no fillers, his parents were missionaries with local connection, Cookie Murphy found while interviewing him last year, she died before she could publish the story for our news letter) 
2. Dan & Dee's Country Shack (complete menu)
3. Jazzy's Cotton Candy & Funnel Cakes
4. Oliver Springs Church of Christ (home made breads)
5. Sparky's Kettle Corn
6. BBQ ( I will send you the business name as soon as her papers come in)
7. Cove Road Baptist Church (cornbread & beans)
[there are several applications that are still pending I know we will have more, I'm trying to limit vendor of similar foods 
to ensure a big variety, and each vendor to make a profit}
 
 
Craft Vendors
1. Barbara Russell ( Crafts & handmade dolls)
2. Priceless Gifts  (sand art, hand painted gifts, henna tattoos’)
3. Doris Mauk (hand turned wooden pens, crochet rugs, purses, doilies, afghans hats ect, )
4. Dixie Home Crafters 
5. Creative Crafts (Hand made beaded jewelry)
6. Suzanne Hull (Crafter)
7. Jim McBrayer (Crafts)
8. Craft Macaroni & Paper (Halloween & Christmas crafts, cards, candles ect)
9. Johnny Howard (bird houses, wood working, quilting)
10. Paradise Jewelry (hand made jewelry)
11. Wanda Hyatt (Knitted items & Wood working)
12. Lone Wolf Studios (John Selsor- Stained glass and heirloom quality wood toys)
13. Jenny Wampler
14. Pat Buhl (unique hand made jewelry/ stone slices & ore specimens)
15. Pete Manouse (t-shirts. signs, pins stickers)
16. Tennessee Naturescapes (Native Tennessee plants) lorimcalister10@yahoo.com
17. Colby's Prospecting ( selling bags of sand from a mine in the Carolinas, then showing you how to pan and find the gold)
         rodco37@yahoo.com
18. Marsha Brown (Wickless Candles)
19. Oliver Springs Historical Society Country Store (crafts, home made jams & relishes, natural lotions, woodcrafts, trash to treasure items,
        home baked cakes and candies, tee-shirts, calendars w/historic pictures of Oliver Springs, pecans and much more)
B2010 list of participants in the festival
 
Food Vendors
1. Dave's Dog House (quality dogs, no fillers, his parents were missionaries with local connection, Cookie Murphy found while interviewing him last year, she died before she could publish the story for our news letter) 
2. Dan & Dee's Country Shack (complete menu)
3. Jazzy's Cotton Candy & Funnel Cakes
4. Oliver Springs Church of Christ (home made breads)
5. Sparky's Kettle Corn
6. BBQ ( I will send you the business name as soon as her papers come in)
7. Cove Road Baptist Church (cornbread & beans)
[there are several applications that are still pending I know we will have more, I'm trying to limit vendor of similar foods 
to ensure a big variety, and each vendor to make a profit}
 
 
Craft Vendors
1. Barbara Russell ( Crafts & handmade dolls)
2. Priceless Gifts  (sand art, hand painted gifts, henna tattoos’)
3. Doris Mauk (hand turned wooden pens, crochet rugs, purses, doilies, afghans hats ect, )
4. Dixie Home Crafters 
5. Creative Crafts (Hand made beaded jewelry)
6. Suzanne Hull (Crafter)
7. Jim McBrayer (Crafts)
8. Craft Macaroni & Paper (Halloween & Christmas crafts, cards, candles ect)
9. Johnny Howard (bird houses, wood working, quilting)
10. Paradise Jewelry (hand made jewelry)
11. Wanda Hyatt (Knitted items & Wood working)
12. Lone Wolf Studios (John Selsor- Stained glass and heirloom quality wood toys)
13. Jenny Wampler
14. Pat Buhl (unique hand made jewelry/ stone slices & ore specimens)
15. Pete Manouse (t-shirts. signs, pins stickers)
16. Tennessee Naturescapes (Native Tennessee plants) lorimcalister10@yahoo.com
17. Colby's Prospecting ( selling bags of sand from a mine in the Carolinas, then showing you how to pan and find the gold)
         rodco37@yahoo.com
18. Marsha Brown (Wickless Candles)
19. Oliver Springs Historical Society Country Store (crafts, home made jams & relishes, natural lotions, woodcrafts, trash to treasure items,
        home baked cakes and candies, tee-shirts, calendars w/historic pictures of Oliver Springs, pecans and much more)
 Barbara Hilemon will be selling her book “The Making of Rocket Boys/October Sky, as Seen Through the Eyes of the Movie Extras”1. New Mountain View Baptist Church (Puppeteering)
2. Alpha House Inc (informational-women in transition)
3. American Income Life Insurance (free Child Safety Kits)
4. Fort South West Point (Mike Woody 376-3641) will bring a group of en-actors, and do an revolutionary war working encampment)
5. Oak Ridge Chiropractic (Dr Blake Hardin)
6. Colorful Faces (complete face painting mask)
7. Smokey Mountain Armature Rocketry Team (Rocket display, rocket burn, rocket launch about 2:00)
8.  Beech Park Baptist doing children's games and activities
9 Three Rivers Tractor Club (Billy Norman 466-2024)
10. Walking Tour of Movie Sites (Charles Tichy 435-0304 crtichy@bellsouth.com)
11. Joe Long Jr. Mule wagon and rides
12 Antique Car Show :Volunteer Street Rod Association (Knoxville)
                                        Walden Ridge Antique Car Club (Harriman)
                                        Mountain Shadow Cruisers (Wartburg)
Smoky Mountain Model “A” Club (Knoxville)
(Car Show will include several cars featured in the movie October Sky)
13 Roane Alliance-Education Matters (Allen Lutz 376-2093 alutz@RoaneAlliance.org))
14 Barbara Hilemon (Rocket Boys Extras Books)
15 State Representative Kelly Keisling
16 Tour of the historic depot
17 Display of unique quilts from local quilters, at the depot

 
Music & Special Guests
 
1. Underwood Brothers Band
2. Kenny Smith Country Music Show (423-627-7108) Interesting career playing with many greats from the past
4. Nathan Fulford
5. Bill Landry (Heartland Series 10 til 11:30)
6. Storyteller (Barbara Hackworth (1 til 2)
7.Ed Spicer (Nasa connection)
8. Bob Becker ( WATE weather van)
9. David Dwyer (“Jake Moseby” October Sky)
John Guss (Set Production Assistant)
Red Schlemiel (Movie Set Contractor, Miami)
 
Community
 
Oliver Springs Fire Dept
Anderson County Rescue Squad
Army National Guard (Clinton)
Civil Air Patrol
 
 
 
 

(updated 9-27-2010)

Hello friends. This is your humble reporter keying this in via Morse Code from an isolated outpost somewhere in the Pacific. I have an important news release regarding our upcoming October Sky Fall Festival, and rather than goop it up in translation, I will post it here intact as it was written by our friend and publicist Sharon Littlepage.

The Land of OS (Oliver Springs) is rolling out the welcome mat to visitors at the second annual October Sky Fall Festival in celebration of its namesake family movie and the natural beauty of the area where it was partly filmed a decade ago.
A parade at 9 a.m., on Saturday, October 16, will kick off the all-day festival at Arrowhead Park, located adjacent to Oliver Springs High School.

An added attraction for 2010 is the Rocket Boys Extras Reunion, beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the DAV Building on Kingston Avenue, for movie extras and others involved in the production of the film on sets in Oliver Springs, Harriman, Petros, Kingston, Oak Ridge, and Knoxville.



Organizers of the 2nd annual October Sky Fall Festival in Oliver Springs are looking for food vendors, artisans and craftspeople, and other family attractions to participate in the October 16 event from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Arrowhead Park.

To commemorate the movie, which was filmed partly in Oliver Springs, a Rocket Boys Extra Reunion has been set for Friday, Oct. 15, beginning with a chili supper at 5:30 p.m. in the DAV Building on Kingston Avenue. Rocket Boys is the name of the book, written by Homer Hickam, upon whose memoirs the film, later re-titled October Sky, was based.

Barbara Hilemon, coordinator of the Rocket Boys Extras Reunion, is compiling a list of contact information for movie extras, so if you know someone who should be invited, please call her at (865) 435-5064. Several honored guests are tentatively scheduled to appear, with details to follow.

Festival vendors must fill out a completed registration form and provide a detailed description of products/services. Checks or money orders made payable to OSHS Fall Festival must be received by Aug 31. Submissions mailed after Aug. 31 will be subject to space availability. The mailing address is P.O. Box 409, Oliver Springs, TN 37840. 

A 10x10 space is $30 ($40 after Aug. 31); a 10x20 space is $45 ($55 after Aug. 31).

The festival is being held to raise funds for renovating the historic Abston Building, which opened in 1915 and since then has been used as a garage, bus station, theater, bowling alley, a church meeting location, and snack bar. 

The goal of the Oliver Springs Historical Society is to restore the building and use it as a museum and archives where they can host events regularly to educate and entertain the public about the history of the area. The group is collaborating with the East Tennessee Community Design Center on the project.

For more information about the festival, contact Lorraine Boling at (865) 435-0385 or hlchannell@comcast.net.

Writer: Sharon Littlepage (865) 938-1388

There.. see how concise and articulate Sharon is? We like her a lot....

(updated 9/6/2010)

Work, Work, Work.....

O.K., so the Second Annual Gospel Singing was an unqualified success. Did you doubt? Of course not...

Doors opened at 5:00 and by 5:10 we were seeing folks coming in to get a good seat. Smart idea, as the crowd was large and appreciative.    

(click on pictures to enlarge)

     If you look very, very closely you may observe that our ladies from the Historical Society were code-colored red as a secret way of spotting our operatives and agents who were cleverly dispersed throughout the crowd. We're sneaky that way....

Below is our professional soundman who... oh wait, that's no soundman, that's me...

My dear friend Mimi Brock was stationed near the foyer to receive guests and attach warning labels to the Hysterical society members. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes at an event like this.. Government rules and guidelines to follow, and one of them is that you simply can't have historical Society operatives walking amongst the public unlabeled.. it gives us an unfair advantage...

Below is Mary Kate Smith welcoming one of the Little Leaf Baptist Choir members...

Kicking off the event was the Little Leaf Youth Choir. I had heard just a hint of how good they were and had wanted to hear them live. Suffice to say they lived up to the hype. They were splendid! There is just something about young voices blending in perfect harmony that gives me the turbo chill bumps.            Seen below is singer Ashley Denise, a performer from up Sevierville/Pigeon Forge way who sang to her own guitar accompaniment. Ashley has great stage presence and a lovely voice.

Here below is the Beech Park Choir. What a rousing offering they provided!They have a big, big sound and the Kellytown Activities Center was thumping with their swelling strains..

. 

Here is Beech park Pastor Robbie Leach getting ready to rock the house.... 

Robbie may hate to admit it, but he is related to me through marriage. I think his wife is kin to my Aunt Reba.  (O.k., Robbie, the gig's up.... everybody knows now.)

Ever heard of the Celestials? It's a shame if you haven't, as they are possibly the best "Old Time Gospel Quartet" to be found in these parts.   

Below is Estel Underwood, who was the Emcee for last year's event, shown with his daughter Sherry Turpin. Estel and Sherry are wonderful singers, and certainly did not disappoint... 

We had labored to acquire Channel 12 News Anchor Dudley Evans, and our efforts paid off, as Dudley was there with the Evans Family, a group comprised of Dudley and his children. Oh. My. Word... They had the crowd rolling with their high energy praise numbers. I wasn't ready for them to leave the stage.      

We took an intermission and asked several of our area pastors and ministers to help us take up a love offering, with the proceeds to go toward our Abston Building Renovation.

(if you haven't heard of this renovation please click on the hotlink tab titled "hiding in a cave with Bin laden and hopelessly out of touch")

One of our "gleaners" was State Rep. Dennis Fergusen, who has been asupporter of this project almost from the beginning.

Seen below are Scott and Becky Parker, members of Oliver Springs First Baptist Church and erstwhile missionaries. Scott and Becky have just the sweetest harmonies. I loaned Scott one of my guitars for their numbers. This one is one I built in 1987 or so....

Curtis Anderson... You just had to be there.. I can't tell you... beautiful, beautiful praise... O don't know how to break it down into words, but so many of my black friends who sing praise worship seem to have captured that essence which most of the rest of us chase and find a bit elusive: that link between heart and soul and vocal chords that makes for the sweetest praise. I may be just too "white" for my own good.... What a blessing this was!

We had selected Robbie Ollis of Choices Cafe to be the food vendor for this year's event. This was driven by comments we heard from last year's event. It seemed that one of the only complaints folks had last year was that we didn't have a good assortment of food from which to choose. We preempted that gripe this year by picking Robbie, who is a great cook and caterer. If you've been to Choices CafeI need not tell you how delectable the entrees are, and Robbie did not disappoint us here either. She and husband Mark are true "Hometown folks" who have chosen to invest in their home town. She works hard for the money, so you better treat her right, to borrow a line from Donna Summer.... 

Also, lest you think that we're one-hit wonders, I should mention that we're unrepentant multitaskers, and are hard at work to bring you the 2010 October Sky Fall Festival. Last year's was successful beyond all we could hope for, and with those memories driving us forward, we have set about to make this one twice as big and bold as last year's. Talk about a festival... this year will kick off on Friday, October 15th, with a banquet honoring all those who played the part of "Extras", or bit actors, in the filming of the movie "October Sky", which I don't have to remind you was filmed in and around Oliver Springs and Petros. Codenamed "The Rocket Boys", It was filmed and through postproduction before we ever heard what the film was ultimately to be known as. We are rounding up lots of pictures of the filming and will be posting them on here very soon. 

The Festival will REALLY kick into high gear on Saturday, October 16th. Starting off with a bang, or to be more specific, a huuuge parade, we're gonna have classic cars from the era of the '50's that provided the backdrop for the movie  "October Sky". Also slated are gobs of antique tractors, marching bands, actors from the movie... What can I say? It's going to be big! We've moved the venue to the much more spacious and accommodating Arrowhead Park simply because this year's festival was so much more comprehensive and dynamic, and the park will give us the "elbow room" we need for such a splendid shindig.

Also scheduled to appear are the Ft. Southwest Point Enactors, who will show in great and colorful detail how the soldiers of that Historic outpost went about their daily duties in the wild and untamed frontier that was East Tennessee in the 18th Century.

I will provide much more detail in days to come, as well as colorful pictures for all our ADD friends who are easily distracted.

Check back, as this page is gonna change early and often....

Robbie

                                                            Robbie