Speaker Series – Rachael Meads, A Shared Tapestry: The Multicultural Roots of Appalachian Music, October 21, 7:00 pm, Byrd Center

A Shared Tapestry: The Multicultural Roots of Appalachian Music, Byrd Center. October 21, 2026, 7:00pm, Byrd Center

While Appalachian music is often romanticized for its ties to British Isles traditions, West Virginia’s sonic landscape is far more diverse — a tapestry of diverse threads representing global cultures. Rachael Meads, founder of Shepherd’s Appalachian Heritage Festival, will share how our music reflects the stories of our history and our diverse communities.

Rachael Meads is an educator, mother, and advocate for Appalachia, social justice, and the power of shared experiences to connect communities. As the Assistant Director of Student Engagement at Shepherd, she environmentally engineers learning opportunities for students and the greater community. Each year she oversees more than 175 events including the annual student leadership conference, Program Board activities, and the Performing Arts Series at Shepherd. Born and raised in Gilmer County, she is a passionate West Virginian who teaches in Shepherd’s Appalachian Studies program. She is the founder of the Appalachian Heritage Festival at Shepherd, a guest lecturer in the NEH Teacher Training Institute held at Shepherd, and a former program chair for the Appalachian Studies Association annual conference. In March 2018, she received Shepherd’s Phenomenal Woman Award. She loves stories, gardening, singing with her family, podcasts, and homegrown tomatoes.

Rachael Meads – Multicultural Roots of Appalachian Music

Speaker Series – Melanie Garvey, The Legacy of Robert C. Byrd Through Ten Objects from his Congressional Archives, September 2, 2026

Melanie Garvey, Archivist of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education, spoke at the Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series September 2, 2026. The recording is available at Robert C. Byrd . A brief annual membership meeting of Historic Shepherdstown preceded the talk.

The archives of the Byrd Center, established in 2002, houses several collections that document the history of West Virginia’s representation in the US Congress from 1949 to 2010, most notably the papers of Senator Robert C. Byrd, longest serving senator in US history. Colleagues and friends of Senator Byrd established a foundation in the mid-1990s to develop an institution to study the history of the US Congress, with the goal of using Senator Byrd’s extensive papers and those of other West Virginia congressional representatives for research and public education.

“The Byrd Center is an enormous asset of national and international importance for Shepherd University and Shepherdstown. Melanie Garvey’s participation in Historic Shepherdstown’s Speaker Series is an opportunity to better understand the significance of the Center and to consider the important role that Senator Byrd played in national and Congressional history,” noted speaker series chair Dr. Keith Alexander, Historic Shepherdstown Board member and Shepherd University Associate Professor of History.

“My plan for the talk is to highlight ten objects from the Robert Byrd Congressional Papers Collection to illustrate Senator Byrd’s contributions to the country and world during his long service in the US Senate and House of Representatives. The objects will be available for attendees to view after the talk, and for all interested, we will lead tours through the collections to explain the archival process,” said Archivist Melanie Garvey.

Speaker Series – Main Street: A Proven Strategy For Historic Small Towns – Erin Barnes, May 13, now online

Erin Barnes, President and CEO of Main Street America, spoke on “Main Street: A Proven Strategy for Historic Small Towns” on May 13. This talk, part of the Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series, was held at 7 pm at the Robert Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education at Shepherd University, and was cosponsored by the Potomac Valley Audubon Society. Historic Shepherdstown YouTube Channel

Erin addressed the success of the Main Street movement over the past 45 years in demonstrating the effectiveness of a combination of historic preservation, economic development, marketing and business restructuring strategies in strengthening the competitiveness of the downtowns of historic small towns and historic urban neighborhoods. Main Street America, with a network that includes 1,200 towns in 44 states, including West Virginia, continues to adapt to changing economic, demographic and retail trends and pressures facing America’s small historic towns – which Ms. Barnes will address in her talk. Main Street America is a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which created the initiative in the early 1980s in response to historic small town downtowns throughout the country where historic buildings were decaying and business competitiveness was not being adequately addressed. In 2024, the network had $7.65B of local reinvestment and 10,126 building rehabs.

“As a member of the Historic Shepherdstown Board and as a former staff member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation when the Main Street initiative was launched almost 50 years ago, it is remarkable to consider what has been accomplished in the preservation and revitalization of small historic town downtowns in all parts of the country. The Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series is fortunate to host someone of Erin Barnes background in small historic town revitalization and environmental issues,” remarked Historic Shepherdstown Board member Greg Coble.

For 15 years, Erin was CEO of ioby, an organization she cofounded, designed to mobilize neighbors who have good ideas to become powerful civic leaders who plan, fund, and make positive change in their own neighborhoods. The Rockefeller Foundation awarded Erin and her co-founders at ioby the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Technology and Innovation. She has also been a freelance writer on climate change and other environmental issues. Earlier in her career, she was a community organizer and public information officer at the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Portland, Oregon. Erin holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia and a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University.

The Historical Memory of Frontier War in Twentieth-Century Shenandoah Family Histories, speaker series: April 15, 2026 – Ben Bankhurst, recording available.

Dr. Ben Bankhurst of Shepherd University presented “The Historical Memory of Frontier War in Twentieth-Century Shenandoah Family Histories” on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. A recording is now available at Speaker series April 2026 – Ben Bankhurst, The Historical Memory of Frontier War in Twentieth-Century Shenandoah Family Histories

The talk addressed the privileged place that the era of white settlement on the eighteenth-century frontier holds in the family lore of the Shenandoah Valley and central Appalachia. For the descendants of white colonizers, the arrival of their pioneer ancestors and the conquest and settlement of the region serve as a heroic origin story, rooting them to the land while simultaneously connecting them to the grand narrative of the nation’s founding. Throughout the twentieth century, family historians with a connection to the region, whether resident or not, published hundreds of family histories celebrating their families’ colonial lineage. Dr. Bankhurst, Associate Professor of History at Shepherd University, examined how white families, in the Valley and Central West Virginia, utilized genealogies anchored in the colonial or revolutionary periods to tie them to the land and, through the positive depiction of pioneer ancestors, counter demeaning narratives of the region and its people. Central to this process was the construction of often demeaning Native American stereotypes.

Speaker Series – In Their Own Words: The French and Indian War at Fort Frederick, MD, October 15, Robert Ambrose, Park Ranger – recording.

Historic Shepherdstown’s Speaker Series on Wednesday, October 15 at the Shepherd University Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education in Shepherdstown, WV, presented “In Their Own Words.” Drawing from primary documents, Maryland State Park Ranger-Historian Robert Ambrose explored the French and Indian War story of Fort Frederick (Washington County, MD) by answering the simple and sometimes complicated questions of who, what, when, why and how.

Fort Frederick (Washington County, MD) is the only stone fort built (1756) by an English colony during the French and Indian War, and is one of the largest fortifications built by English colonists in North America. The 585 acre Fort Frederick State Park borders the Potomac River and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. The state park is around a 19 mile walk or bike ride on the Canal Towpath from Shepherdstown.

Robert Ambrose has been employed with the Maryland Park Service since 2009, and at Fort Frederick since 2014 overseeing the largest living history program in the state park system. He resides in Berkeley Springs, WV, and in his spare time serves as the Defensive Coordinator of the Berkeley Springs High School Football team. Since 1996, Ambrose has been involved in living history of various time periods from the 1750s to the 1950s.

Listen to Ambrose’s talk – In Their Own Words, the French and Indian War at Fort Frederick, MD.

Speaker Series – Beyond Storer College Campus: The Early Roots of Black Community in Harpers Ferry, September 3, Lynn Pechuekonis

Historic Shepherdstown’s Speaker Series on Wednesday, September 3, 7:00 pm, at the Shepherd University Robert C. Byrd Center in Shepherdstown, WV, will feature “Beyond the Storer College Campus: The Early Roots of Black Community in Harpers Ferry, 1867-1917.”

Author and Historian Lynn Pechuekonis will talk about the impact that Storer College, which educated thousands of African American students from 1867 until 1955, had on the Black community that evolved and thrived around its campus. Storer’s policies and approach had a strong influence on Harpers Ferry to ensure that Black residents faced fewer race-based barriers than was typical in the region at the time. Pechuekonis will discuss the roots of this evolution and highlight some of Harpers Ferry’s enterprising and accomplished Black residents.

Her talk will be preceded by a short Historic Shepherdstown Annual Meeting at 6:45 pm.

Bee Line March, 1775, Speaker Series talk by Doug Perks, May 2025

The Bee Line March route

Historic Shepherdstown’s 2025 Speaker Series featured a May 14 talk by local historian and Jefferson County, WV, native Doug Perks about the history around the summer of 1775 Bee Line March. The talk, which begins the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Bee Line March, focused on the stories around the remarkable 26 day 600 mile journey in summer 1775 of 95 Virginians known as the Bee Line March, under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson, who set out from what is now Shepherdstown, WV to Cambridge, MA to join General George Washington.

Doug Perks – Bee Line March

Speaker Series – 1775 Bee Line March, May 14, Doug Perks

Doug Perks

Historic Shepherdstown’s 2025 Speaker Series continued with a May 14 talk by local historian and Jefferson County, WV, native Doug Perks about the history around the summer of 1775 Bee Line March. The talk, part of the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Bee Line March, took take place at the Shepherd University Robert C. Byrd Center in Shepherdstown, WV, at 7 pm on Wednesday, May 14.

This talk focused on the stories around the remarkable 26 day 600 mile journey in summer 1775 of 95 Virginians known as the Bee Line March, under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson, who set out from what is now Shepherdstown, WV to Cambridge, MA to join General George Washington. In June 1775, the Continental Congress had established the Continental Army, which would include a Virginia company formed in Berkeley County, WV and which gathered in Shepherdstown (then Mecklenburg) for the journey to Cambridge.

The speaker, Doug Perks, recently retired as the Historian of the Jefferson County Museum. He serves as Historian for the Elmwood Cemetery Association and is a Director of the Jefferson County Historical Society. In 2023, he published The Civil War Years in Jefferson County, VA. He was named a West Virginia History Hero in 2017 and in 2022 was named the Historian Laureate of Shepherdstown.

Recording of the talk – Doug Perks – Bee Line March

The route of the Bee Line March was recently mapped by Jefferson County GIS and Addressing Department and Historic Shepherdstown, using Henry Bedinger’s diary quoted by Danske Dandridge’s Historic Shepherdstown. See Bee Line March map

Speaker series: History of the Kentucky Rifles, April 2025 – Brian LaMaster and Tim Hodges

Speaker Series – Brian LaMaster and Tim Hodges of the Kentucky Rifle Foundation – Kentucky Rifles

A special exhibit, Longrifles by the Sheetz family and Other Gunsmiths from Jefferson and Berkeley Counties, opened at the Historic Shepherdstown Museum on Saturday, April 19. The exhibit, co-sponsored by Historic Shepherdstown and the Kentucky Rifle Foundation, featured 15 rifles made between 1740 and 1840, including 10 signed Sheetz rifles. The Speaker Series talk History of Kentucky Rifles from the 18th to 20th century took place on Wednesday, April 16, at which master gunsmith Brian LaMaster spoke about Kentucky Rifles in general and Kentucky Rifle Foundation board member Tim Hodges spoke about the rifles in the exhibit.

The Kentucky Rifle Foundation is the educational arm of the Kentucky Rifle Association. The KRA is an organization dedicated to those people interested in collecting and preserving the art and history of antique Kentucky Rifles, pistols, horns, and accoutrements. Both LaMaster and Hodges are past presidents of the KRA.

This will be the largest display of rifles in the Historic Shepherdstown Museum in its more than 40-year history. The exhibit is the first event for Shepherdstown’s 250th Anniversary Celebration of the Bee Line March, which occurred in the summer of 1775.