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Storyfest is excited to feature three outstanding Texas storytellers this
year. Two of these ‘tellers were with us our very first festival and are pleased to have an opportunity to return and celebrate 20 years with us. The third, our first cowboy storyteller to be featured, is
a crowd favorite.
Elizabeth Ellis has been referred to as “the Mother of Storytelling”. She is a
versatile and riveting teller of Appalachian and Texas tales and stories of heroic American women, though her personal stories are arguably her best. Elizabeth was selected as a "Listener's Choice" at the
30th Anniversary National Storytelling Festival and a Storyteller-In-Residence at the International Storytelling Center. She was the first recipient of the John Henry Faulk Award from the Tejas Storytelling
Association and the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Association. A listener at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, observed that listening to Elizabeth “was
like having Garrison Keillor, Molly Ivins and Rita Mae Brown on stage at once."
We are so pleased to have Elizabeth back and look forward to all her tales,
including those memories of Storyfest – 20 years ago.
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Dennis Gaines
calls himself “a cowboy poet, humorist and
storyteller, a vocation that rates with bawdy house piano player in terms of prestige and respectability.” Nevertheless, having survived an epic childhood which found his parents playing hide-and-seek
all over the world, and Dennis always finding them, he was allowed to matriculate to the seventh grade, after which he found himself seeking ungainful employment in the oilfields of the world and ranches
of the West. He frequents assorted gatherings and may be spotted at conventions, private parties, banquets, gunfights, etc. He has never been seen in the company of lawyers, politicians or other such
outlaws. (This past sentence alone may be why he’s a two-time winner of the Texas State Liars Contest©.)
Gaines was a Texas State Representative Poet at the Western
Folklife Center's National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, in 1990, and returned in 1991, 1992, and 2007.
Dennis has been with us since 1997 and has endeared himself to the
audience and the staff. If he’s not on stage, you’ll probably find him at the cake walk in the children’s area, as he’s the self-proclaimed perennial winner of the Storyfest cake walk!
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Gayle Ross describes herself as an enrolled member of the Cherokee
nation, the second largest Indian group in the country after the Dine or Navajo. The daughter of a half-Cherokee father, she calls her mother "an Alabama Southern belle," and describes her family as a long
line of mixed blood Cherokee people. She is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Ross, who was born in 1790 and was Principal Chief through the Trail of Tears (when most of the Cherokee in the Appalachian
Mountains were forced to walk to western lands) until his death in 1866. He was 1/8 Cherokee and he married a full-blooded Cherokee woman who died on the Trail of Tears.
When asked how she got started in storytelling, Gayle says, “It was a hobby
that got out of hand. I was telling stories once at the Cherokee Heritage Center and my mother was up with me. My mother came up with me because she was so proud that I had been invited to perform at the Heritage
Center. Somebody came up and asked that same question and my mother leaned over, interrupted and said she was always that way! I guess probably it's true. My grandmother told stories. When I came along, she was the
family storyteller and the family historian. I just grew up with a love of stories and a love of language.”
Gayle was here in 1989, along with Elizabeth, to start us on our love of
stories, and we’re thrilled she’s back to celebrate our 20 year history.
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Please contact Shay Davis with questions or comments.
© Copyright 2008 George West Storyfest. All rights reserved.
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