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Kevin Welch (Fall 2009)
October 16-17th
Kevin Welch is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a federally recognized tribe located in western North Carolina. He grew up in the Big Cove Community of the Cherokee Reservation and became motivated to save Cherokee traditional crops when he tried to find his Welch-family line of October Beans to plant in his garden. Kevin realized that other Cherokee plants were also becoming scarce and decided to devote himself to saving Cherokee food plants and traditional agricultural knowledge. His research included travel to seed saving organizations across the country and eventually led to the establishment of the Center for Cherokee Plants. The Center is as a plant nursery, seed bank and educational facility. For this, Kevin has been honored as a “Community Visionary”. He most enjoys being a garden mentor for the Cherokee Youth Council sharing ancient Cherokee gardening knowledge with Cherokee youths. Kevin is currently studying anthropology at Western Carolina University to gain a broader perspective of the role of agriculture in cultural evolution. He is employed by North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension and is the Project Coordinator for the Center for Cherokee Plants.

Kevin will be speaking to classes on Friday the 16th, and will be "in residence" in the Ethnoecology and Biodiversity Lab, Room 105A, in Baldwin Hall at The University of Georgia. On Saturday he will be speaking at FOLK's 2nd annual Fall Apple Festival.

Tom Brown (Fall 2008)
October 23-25th
Tom Brown, an old timey apple collector, spent Thursday and Friday at the University of Georgia speaking to classes and telling stories in the Ethnoecology lab (Room 105A Baldwin Hall). He also spoke at a public lecture at Common Ground on Thursday evening. On Saturday, we held an Apple Fest with many of his displays (see photos).

Tom spent his early childhood on a small farm in rural Iredell County, NC. He has many fond childhood memories of he and his brother making cider from their McLean apples and his mother making delicious pies from their Pound apples.

Gradually the old apples became distant memories as he attended college at NC State University, took a job with a paper company in Richmond, Virginia and still later worked for a tobacco company in Winston-Salem, NC.

Tom and his wife always loved farmers markets and they even plan the sequence of their vacations to hit key farmers markets in other states. Every Saturday they visited the farmers market at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds in Winston-Salem. Tom was fascinated at the wonderful varieties of heritage apples one man brought the market every year. He learned that there was a lost heritage apple variety from his area of Frosyth County, the Harper Seedling. This initiated his search and eventually lead to his finding five very rare apple varieties in his childhood county of Iredell.

This reignited his interest and the search was on.  In about ten years he has found over 800 heritage apple varieties in six southern states. Once found he donates grafted trees to preservation orchards, shares cuttings for grafting with people who sell heritage apple trees (sending these from Alabama to Alaska), and also sells apple trees himself. His goal is to return these valuable trees to production so they might be enjoyed by future generations. Now at least 300 of the varieties he has found are either in preservation orchards are being sold by heritage apple nurseries. His current pursuit is establishing preservation orchards in many counties containing heritage apples representative of what was in the county 100 years ago.

Visit Tom Brown's website.  

Justin Pitts (Spring 2008)
April 25th-26th
Justin Pitts came to UGA and talked with classes on Friday, and on Saturday he spoke at the 11th annual SSL Seed Swap.

Accompanying Justin Pitts on his visit was David Shoemate, a farmer and attorney from Mississippi who is interested in researching and preserving Southern history.