For over 16 years, Antoine Fletcher has been a devoted employee of the National Park Service. He has worked at parks such as Fort Sumter National Monument, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, and now world-renowned Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He’s contributed to the National Park Service through interpretation and education, partnerships, and currently science communication at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and currently resides in Asheville, NC. 

Amy Arrendell is a Crawford woman. Her grandfather, Adm GC Crawford, is the son and brother of the Crawford women featured in this talk. A retired entrepreneur herself, Amy is now an avid hiker, grandmother and volunteer at the Dr. John Wilson community garden in Black Mountain

Keith Bamberger, N.C. Division of Air Quality, started working with the teachers and students of North Carolina in 2004. As a certified Environmental Educator from N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and an Energy Management degree from NCSU, he brings together mind-active and hands-on teaching tools with practical science focused on health, energy, and personal economy. His goal is to help the people of North Carolina better understand that they are both a part of the cause and solutions to our air quality problems, and he helps students see opportunities for future jobs and ways to save money while protecting their own health.

Heidi Kim is a Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Asian American Center at UNC Chapel Hill. She has published two books on U.S. literature during the Cold War and its reflection of domestic race relations and geopolitics and numerous other articles on topics ranging from antislavery literature to, most recently, a comparison of Edna Ferber and William Faulkner. She researches and speaks extensively on the literature and history of the Japanese American incarceration, including editing the story of an incarcerated family from Hawai‘i in Taken from the Paradise Isle (UP Colorado, 2015), which won an Aloha Beyond the Sea Award from the Hawaii Book Publishers Association.

Amanda Wray serves on the board of Blue Ridge Pride and teaches courses at UNC Asheville in writing, oral history, and gender / sexuality studies. She’s a first generation college student from Southern Appalachia (Kentucky) and project founder of the Blue Ridge Pride LGBTQIA+ Archive.

Kelly Dunbar grew up in Asheville and is a graduate of A.C. Reynolds High School. She graduated from UNC-Asheville in 2004 with her BA in History/Education and from 2004 to 2006 she served as an education volunteer in the United States Peace Corps in Uganda.  After returning from her service she began teaching at Buncombe County Middle College in 2007.  In 2020 she graduated from Pace University with her MA in American History where she wrote her capstone thesis titled, PIONEERS IN COMMUNITY BUILDING AND RACIAL UPLIFT BLACK WOMEN IN BUNCOMBE COUNTY 1865-1930.  She currently teaches American History and Advanced Placement American History at Owen High School and was chosen by the state as the North Carolina History Teacher of the Year for 2022.

Mary and her husband Joe have collected postcards of the area for over 35 years with now some 3,000 vintage postcards of Buncombe County in their collection. Using these images, they have written 4 books on the history of The Swannanoa Valley, presented numerous talks, taught multiple courses on the history of The Swannanoa Valley for the McCall Life-long Learning Program, and led hikes for The Swannanoa Valley Museum.

Books: Montreat: A Postcard History and The Swannanoa Valley: A Postcard History by Mary and Joe Standaert are both available at the Swannanoa Valley Museum for purchase.

The Montreat Gateboys and Their Stories and The Buncombe County Name Game by Mary Standaert are self-published and are available from the Standaerts.

Timothy Silver is Emeritus Professor of History at Appalachian State University and the author of Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America (published in 2003), which won the 2003 Ragan Old North State Award given by the N.C. Literary and Historical Association for the best work of nonfiction by a North Carolina writer and the 2004 Philip D. Reed Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment, given by the Southern Environmental Law Center. His other books include A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800 (published in 1990) and An Environmental History of the Civil War, co-authored with Judkin Browning, published in 2020.  

Ian Kirkpatrick is a ballad singer, clogger, and folklorist from East Tennessee.  He has participated in local and regional ballad singing events since 2013.  In 2019, Kirkpatrick received an MA in Appalachian Studies with a concentration in Music and Culture from Appalachian State University.  Since graduation, he has been awarded multiple folk arts apprenticeships from South Arts and Tennessee Arts Commission to study under ballad singing mentors Sheila Kay Adams, Carmen McCord Hicks, and the late Bobby McMillon. In 2021, Kirkpatrick was recognized by South Arts as an Emerging Traditional Artist.

Born in Charlotte, NC to Greek immigrant parents, but raised in New York City, George D. Pappas is an attorney in Hendersonville, NC representing clients in Western North Carolina and nationwide in U.S. immigration law. Dr. Pappas is also the Executive Director of the International Center for Legal Studies (ICLS) teaching University of London law students worldwide and a member of the Cherokee Supreme Court (Eastern Band).

In addition to practicing law, since 2006 Dr. Pappas has researched and written his book The Literary and Legal Genealogy of Native American Dispossession –  The Marshal Trilogy Cases 1823-1832 published by The Francis & Taylor Group. Pappas’ book explains how the U.S. Supreme Court blurred the distinction between literature and law, especially colonial literature, to dispossess Native Americans of their land. Additionally, he has also published articles in Truthout, Critical Legal Thinking, Folio Magazine, American Banker, Countertrade Quarterly, among other publications.

Dr. Pappas has lectured on Native American law, history and culture in addition to U.S. Immigration Law at the University of London (Queen Mary College), The University of North Carolina – Asheville, Appalachian State University, Emory University, The North Carolina Bar Association, The Buncombe County Bar Association and the World Affairs Council of Western North Carolina.

Dr. Pappas holds degrees from the London School of Economics & Political Science; The University of London, Delaware Law School, Widener University and Birkbeck College, University of London. He also earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Birkbeck College, University of London.