John Dilbeck Musings

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of seeing Ben Utley, owner of the NC Mountain Made website, again. It’s always fun being around Ben, who has a cheerful and optimistic personality.

NC Mountain Made is a heritage database of authentic music, authors, storytellers, and handmade arts & crafts of western North Carolina. In the not-too-distant-future, Ben will be helping artisans in western North Carolina sell their products over the Internet.

He came to the monthly meeting of Appalachian Heritage Crafters and updated us on the progress he is making getting his new venture organized.

A number of our members expressed interest in working with Ben and we’ll probably see some of their art on his site, soon.

Ben’s added a calendar covering Western North Carolina Heritage and Cultural Events. Be sure to check it out!

Don’t forget. If you’re interested in what he’s doing to promote and preserve our Appalachian heritage, you can sign up for his announcements list and he’ll keep you informed.

I hope you have great success with this, Ben!

Yesterday, for the first time in a couple of months, I attended the monthly Heritage Tourism Roundtable meeting in Andrews, NC. This meeting is held the first Tuesday of each month from 10:00 am until approximately 2:00 pm at the St. Andrews Lutheran Church.

I enjoyed seeing friends and catching up on what’s happening in the four western-most counties of North Carolina and on the progress we’re making for promoting heritage tourism in our area.

One of the guests at the meeting was Ben Utley, a lifelong educator who is now residing in western North Carolina.

He announced the upcoming debut of NCMtnMade.com, “A Heritage Database of authentic music, authors, storytellers, and handmade arts/crafts of Western North Carolina.”

If you’d like to be informed of what’s happening at this site, there is a preview page up and running and you can subscribe to their mailing list to be informed when it goes live.

Ben has some great ideas about promoting our heritage of fine art, crafts, toys, music and food, and I’d like to send my best wishes for success with this project.