What makes mountain culture? One important aspect is storytelling, and next week the Friends of the Library will learn about a regional project involving Ashe and Watauga counties.

Dr. Patricia Beaver will be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Friends of the Ashe County Public Library at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 25, in the downstairs Friends Room.

For over a decade, Dr. Beaver, director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at ASU, and her students have been working with Ashe and Watauga residents who live along the North Fork headwaters of the New River. In collaboration with EKCHO (Elk Knob Community Heritage Organization), they have been asking “Will you tell us a story?” and “How do you want your community to be remembered?” documenting community memories from Sutherland, Pottertown/Tamarack, and Meat Camp, communities now adjoining Elk Knob State Park.

Through stories and photos, Beaver will talk about what she and her students and her community collaborators have to share about local history and family dynamics, about community and the economy, about elevation, religion, and about myths and realities of mountain life and rural cultures.

Born and raised in Asheville, Beaver studied at Duke University and later taught at Duke and NC State University. She arrived at ASU in 1974 and has taught at the university since that time except for an almost 10-year stay in China in the 1980s. From the mid-1990s she and her students have focused on questioning and researching diversity in the region and specifically in the New River’s North Fork headwaters area.

The Friends of the Library is a nonprofit 501(c) (3) organization devoted to raise public awareness of the library and its services, and to raise funds to provide additional programs for residents and visitors to Ashe County. Individual membership in the Friends is only $5 a year, lifetime membership is $100; both are tax deductible.

Light refreshments will be available. All Friends meetings are open to the public.