Great storytelling takes center stage

One can imagine our ancestors of eons past, sitting around a campfire, regaling each other with tales of the latest mastodon conquest or battle with a rival tribe.

Storytelling remains the primary form of entertainment and education in the 21st century, and takes center stage nationally this week with the release of "A Prairie Home Companion." If you're not familiar with public radio, the film -- by top director Robert Altman and starring big names like Lindsay Lohan, Meryl Streep and many others -- centers on the fictionalized last days of master storyteller Garrison Keillor's radio show of the same name.

How appropriate, then, that storytelling takes center stage this weekend in McCook with one of our premiere community events, the Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival, which begins Friday and concludes with an afterglow session Saturday night at the Bieroc Cafe.

And by all accounts, the 10th annual festival promises to enhance its standing of a first-class event. Like Keillor's radio show, there will be music, comedy, poetry and stories of a more serious vein.

Headliners Matt Mason and Ed Stivender are joined by long-time Lincoln area musicians David Fowler, Peter Blakeslee and John Walker of the FBW Express in major events 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the historic Fox Theater in downtown McCook.

Saturday, other events are set for the High Plains Museum, Bieroc Cafe and Norris Park.

Plan to attend one or all of the events. You'll take home some stories of your own.

Storytelling is a centerpiece of two other events coming up quickly in the Golden Plains.

This weekend, St. Francis hosts the annual Stearman Fly-In, featuring the colorful biplanes that helped train American farm boys prepare to fly the modern warplanes that helped defeat the Third Reich and Japan in World War II. Balloon launches and skydiving also highlight that annual event.

And air-minded individuals will have a special treat next weekend, June 16-18, when McCook hosts the State Fly-In.

Storytelling will be a centerpiece there as well, with author Diane R. Bartels telling about Eveny Sharp, the only woman to fly the U.S. Air Mail in Nebraska and one of the original 28 women to fly the Army's airplanes during World War II.

Killed ferrying a P-38 in Pennsylvania, she is buried in Ord near the airport named in her honor.

Also onstage at the McCook Regional Airport will be Doug Cairns, a former Royal Air Force pilot who overcame diabetes to fly around the world in a light twin airplane to raise funds for diabetic research.

Performances also will feature champion aerobatic pilot Rob Ator and formation flying by the Colorado Yak Pak.

And for more traditional entertainment, don't forget the Carson & Barnes Circus, hosted by the McCook Optimist Club, which will put on two performances, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Red Willow County Fairgrounds.

Readers may remember that the circuses' owner, D.R. Miller, who experienced his first circus right here in McCook, passed away during its last visit here, Sept. 8, 1999.

Just one more story to remember and share with our friends.