The Friday Finish - All About Jack - Best Pieces of Home - More Than a Food Box - A New Pair Every Month? - XC, Track & Field Celebrated
- Tim Crawford
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
April 24, 2026
All About Jack
Storytelling is an art that is perfected with time, and most Appalachians have been entertained by Jack Tales for generations. Joel Brashear has been telling stories for over 20 years, and Thursday he captured the attention of students that filled the Red Bird Christian School (RBCS) Chapel. Hardly a whisper was heard during the hour Joel told stories, mostly the Jack tales that have been repeated and perfected in the mountains for decades.
Joel’s storytelling was the opening for Thursday afternoon’s focus at Red Bird on Appalachian culture. Mrs. Patty Vance now leads Appalachian Studies at RBCS following Mr. Daugh Sizemore’s full retirement. Thanks to a folk art grant from Berea College, our students have been able to experience artists like Joel that come to the school and make trips to locations to learn more about Appalachian culture and history.
The Best Pieces of Home
Deep in the heart of the mountains at Red Bird Christian School, Thursday just felt different in the best way. We pressed pause on the usual and spent the afternoon lifting up Appalachian Culture with our K–12 kids. It was like gathering up all the best pieces of home—our roots, our stories, our songs, our people—and laying them out where our students could really see them and claim them.
Appalachian Culture Day began in the chapel with Appalachian storyteller Joel Brashear sharing old Jack Tales that have lived longer than any of us. He brought the stories to life in a way only a true mountain storyteller can. His easy Appalachian dialect, his big animated expressions, and the way he bounced around with each character had students laughing, leaning in, and hanging on every word. Around here, those stories aren’t just for passing time. They’re how history, humor, and hard lessons get handed down, one generation to the next. Listening to him, you could feel that old mountain wisdom settle over the room.
Storytelling itself is pure Appalachian culture. Just about every mountain kid can remember some great‑grandpa or great‑great‑grandma telling them a spooky “where’s my big toe?” story or some wild tale that got passed around the family. It’s just part of who you are growing up here, and it feels like a rite of passage to take those same stories and carry them on to the next generation.
Then the Appalachian Studies students took center spotlight in the school cafeteria. With display boards, props and artifacts they shared what they’ve been learning about Coopering in Appalachia: A Dying Craft, Music of Eastern Kentucky, Appalachian Traditional Foods, Native Americans of Appalachia, Appalachian Musical Instruments, Opioid Addiction in Appalachia, Loretta Lynn, Coal Mining and the Finley Mine Disaster, Appalachian Family Traditions, Red Bird Mission and the DeWall Senior Citizen Center, Moonshining in Appalachia, Appalachian Herbal Medicine, and Famous Appalachian Leaders. It was the hard parts and the beautiful parts of our region, side by side, the way it really is.
Our Appalachian Studies teacher, Mrs. Patty Vance, has poured her whole heart into this class. She’s a history nerd in the best possible way, and she’s right in her element in that classroom—surrounded by old stories, artifacts, and mountain folks’ names she can rattle off by heart. She’s an Appalachian girl through and through, and it shows in the way she pushes her students to dig deeper into their own roots and see that our history isn’t something in a book, it’s something they’re still a part of.
Days like this matter. Our kids need to know where they come from and why this place is worth loving and fighting for. When students learn the stories of their own hills and hollers, they carry themselves a little taller and start to see that they have a part in what comes next.
- Kayla Smith, Development Gifts and Media
More Than a Food Box
The following was submitted after Tracy Nolan, Red Bird Mission Community Outreach Director, attended a man that came to Red Bird seeking help.
Just yesterday I was assisting an elderly gentleman that was seeking help with his disconnect notice for electricity and grieving the loss of his brother that he had been caring for over the last year. After sitting down and speaking with him I discovered he was also late on his rent and had no funds left for food. I was able to immediately connect him with Mountain Comprehensive Care for grief counseling, created a payment agreement to extend the date for his rent payments to avoid late fees, linked him with the Community Action Agency to assist with his back owed electric bills and provided him with a large box of food from our expanded pantry.
A New Pair Every Month?
Charlene was overjoyed to get her new pair of glasses this week. Not only did she love them, she jokingly said that she wants a new pair every month to match her clothes!
Candace Collins, Women and Children’s Ministries Coordinator at Red Bird Mission, worked with New Eyes, a nonprofit organization founded to improve vision for those in financial need, to get Charlene’s glasses. Through her status as a Community Health Worker, Candace is able to advocate for and connect people with needed health care and services.
Cross Country, Track and Field Celebrated
Coach Angela Crawford and Assistant Coach Natasha Howard prepared an informal awards event on Monday at the Cramer Room on the Queendale Campus of Red Bird Mission to honor the 2025 Red Bird Cross Country and 2026 Track and Field student athletes and their families. These athletes and their families deserve a chance to celebrate the accomplishments coming from their dedication to many hours of practice, travel to meets, and the late night returns home during the week to finish homework or prepare for a test the next morning.
The elementary and middle school cross country runners were an inspiration at every meet last fall. Their energy and competitive spirit was evident at every meet and was rewarded with improvement each week for the 11 boys and girls.
Bryan William Smith, finishing 4 years in cross country, broke the Red Bird middle school record last year and again this year. Smith finished 10th at the middle school region championships and joined four boys on the high school team to finish their season as a team at region championships in October.
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