Ohio University Southern marks 70 years with Festival of the Hills

Before Ohio University Southern had a campus, it had evening classes inside Ironton High School. Seventy years later, on Saturday, Oct. 10, it's marking that anniversary with Festival of the Hills, a free, day-long celebration of Appalachian music, food and craft.

The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on campus and is presented in partnership with America 250 Lawrence County.

"This campus didn't start with a building. It started because a community opened its doors to us, and kept them open for almost 30 years. Everything we are today, we built with this community, and that's worth remembering as we mark 70 years," said Dean Deborah Marinski, who also teaches history at OHIO Southern.

Festival of the Hills isn't new. A version of it was a fixture on the Ironton campus for roughly two decades before it quietly faded off the calendar. This year's celebration brings it back, timed to the anniversary, with a lineup built to feel like the whole region rather than just the campus.

"We really are a tri-state area. A lot of our students cross one bridge to get to class and another to get to their clinical sites, and plenty of our neighbors cross state lines every day for work, school or just for fun," said Sarah Simmons, communications and external relations manager at OHIO Southern and one of the festival's organizers. "We wanted this lineup to reflect that."

Doris Fields, who performs as Lady D, opens the day at 11 a.m. with soul and R&B out of Beckley, West Virginia. She's a coal miner's daughter who started singing in church at seven and has spent decades building one of the region's finest soul voices, with five records and a jazz and blues festival of her own to her name.

String Therapy takes over at 1 p.m. with progressive bluegrass, a sound the Ironton-based band has been playing since a Thursday night jam session in 2001 turned into something more permanent. Sasha Colette & The Magnolias close the day at 3 p.m. with rock and soul out of Olive Hill, Kentucky, led by a singer who's fronted the band since 2010 and just released her seventh record.

A cruise-in runs alongside the music from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., led by OHIO Southern faculty members Mike Donley and Gary Belcher. There's no entry fee and no pre-registration. Door prizes go out every 15 minutes, and every participant takes home a commemorative plaque.

Inside the Riffe Rotunda, the Inspire Art Show, hosted by Third & Center and Acorn & Oak Photography, will display work from artists across the region next to a quilt exhibit from the Material Hugs Quilting Guild.

The guild, made up largely of retired and current faculty from the Southern campus, sews Quilts of Valor for veterans right on campus and will be taking nominations for this year's recipients at the festival. Material Hugs is always looking for volunteers to help construct quilts, and its work culminates each November in Threads of Gratitude, the guild's annual Veterans Day ceremony in the Rotunda. Artists 16 and older living within 50 miles of Ironton can still submit their own work to the Inspire Art Show through Thursday, Oct. 1.

Close to 30 vendors, artisans and community organizations will set up across the grounds, selling handmade goods, sharing local resources, and giving people a reason to browse between sets. A handful of food trucks will keep the day fed, and family activities like pumpkin bowling, an apple eating contest and more will keep kids busy.

Registration is still open for anyone who'd like to join them. Organizers are looking for people who make their own goods, whether that's woodworking, baking or another craft, and community organizations that want to share an activity, an educational opportunity or a way for people to get involved.

Seventy years is a long time. Here's where it began.

Ohio Southern's roots reach back further than 1956. After World War II, the GI Bill sent more than two million veterans to college, many of them the first in their families to go. Ohio University opened branches in high school buildings in Portsmouth, Chillicothe and Zanesville to meet the demand.

Ironton's turn came in 1956, when evening courses began at Ironton High School, aimed at training cadet teachers. The curriculum grew from there, eventually offering bachelor's degrees in elementary education and business administration, but there was no building to call its own yet. Those evening classes ran for almost 30 years before Ohio University bought eight acres near the U.S. 52 and Ohio 141 interchange in 1982.

The first building opened in 1985, a two-story facility with classrooms, a library and a 350-seat auditorium. The Academic Center followed in 1990, the Riffe Center and its rotunda in 1995, and the Dingus Technology Center in 2000.

Festival of the Hills is free and open to everyone. More information is available at ohio.edu/festival-hills.

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