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Patricia Rose Ballard Coffie

Taking Storytelling Out There: Cedar River Storytellers Festival 1975 to 2000

by Patricia Coffie


Patricia Coffie has been a puppeteer since 1970 and a storyteller formally since 1981. Coffie served on the NAPPS Board and the Northlands Board. She has been president of Northlands, Iowa Library Association, and Iowa Library Association Foundation. Everywhere and always she has been pleased to help keep storytelling happening.


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Sometimes it seems that the really valued storytelling is done on a national stage, in a tent, with all chairs facing forward and a sound system in place—not to mention “national” level tellers. I know many other ways for the wonder and value of storytelling to be shared. Here’s one time when I helped take storytelling out there.


In 1982, the Cedar River Storytellers Festival was expanded from one day of storytelling for children to three days of storytelling for everyone. This festival began in 1975. I had been involved since 1976, fell in with Northlands in 1981, and knew storytelling could be for everyone.Through contacts in Northlands, storytellers from Minnesota volunteered to join storytellers from Iowa and present a three day festival that would include every age and build a storytelling audience. Six tellers from Minnesota and 7 from Iowa organized and volunteered workshops and tellings throughout the community. “Volunteered” was the key word. Regional and the college covered the costs for meals, snacks, and handouts. There was no cost to attend anything. Regional library administrator, college instructor, and public library director worked as much as was necessary, setting up, placing signs and cleaning up—whatever it took. Listeners pitched in as soon as they saw what needed to be done.


The Mayor proclaimed “Storytelling Days.” All requests for a storyteller in the community for those three days were answered. We had spaces at no charge at the public library, college, schools, and churches. We had outdoor locations as well. The first coffee house concert was held on the Wartburg College campus that Friday night. Spontaneous call and response was possible. In my story, I told of thinking I had things well in hand when I returned to UIowa for a graduate degree only to find that my 10 year old son was hopping freight trains and my 6 year old son was stacking brush against our apartment house under the fire escape and lighting fires. As I told, my son then 13 called out “But, Mom, you said not to light fires in the woods!” Now I had more than what happened—I had some of the why! And the audience loved the interplay.


We told stories sitting in the grass on the college commons. No microphone. All welcome. “Molly Whuppie” and other tales had all the space, sunshine and shadow they needed and listeners joined casually as the stories were told. On Saturday afternoon, we held the Liars’ Contest on the Courthouse Lawn with local lawyers as the judges. Liars and listeners came from far and near.


On Saturday night, at midnight, we told ghost stories in the cemetery. I had permission for us to use the still only-dirt-and-grass hill. Parks and Recreation hauled in an old outhouse and turned it over at the bottom of the hill. We rigged a generator inside and stuffed the privy with insulation to keep the sound down. That line ran up the hill to provide a plug for the microphone and another for a single light. Tellers volunteered their stories and our local undertaker volunteered to be the emcee. He had his own formal vampire attire.


At 11:30 p.m., all was in place at that slightly damp and plenty shivery midnight. We waited to see if anyone would come. Within minutes, headlights could be seen in a steady line out of Waverly, up from Waterloo and Cedar Falls and all along every winding road in the cemetery. People walked to the hill and huddled on their blankets in anticipation. As stories were told, the huddling and shivering grew in appreciation. We think more than 300 people could have been there—it was too dark to count. Midnight in the cemetery led to a midnight telling at the library for the next 25 years.


On Sunday morning, at the closing breakfast, Michael Cotter told his story of the Killdeer. Bev Lind, one of the founders of the CRST Festival, wept and said “I’ve been co-sponsoring this storytelling thing for nine years now, and at last I understand what storytelling is.”

My own story of doing that CRST Festival and keeping its joy and wonder intact while planning my breast biopsy (and its surprise censorship attack) for the following Monday is called Standing Up While Lying Down. That story continues to be part of library continuing education and conferences and storytelling events.


Great tellers appeared during the 25 years of CRSTF. I remember best those who volunteered to expand the storytelling to the whole community in 1982. Thank you Loren Niemi, Michael Cotter, Larry Johnson, Elaine Wynn, Maren Hinderlie, and Sarah Meybaum from Minnesota. Thank you Duffy DeFrance, Marlena Maher, Jan Irving, Walter Phelps, Steven Palmquist, and Richard Fredine from Iowa.


I planned a bit, hosted a bit, told a bit and grew in all those ways from the contacts that year and all the other years. I think about a dozen storytellers fended for themselves at my place in 1982.


Others came and told that weekend and I do not have all of their names. Thank you to all storytellers who stepped up then and step up now to spread the telling.


Cedar River Storytelling Festival ran from 1975 through 2000. CRSTF lost out to the need for “education for teachers” at the college, computerizing Iowa’s libraries for the Regional Library staff and the exhaustion of a second public library building project (both on time and in the black) for me.


Midnight in the Cemetery and Liars’ Contest on the Court House Lawn might be easier than you think and more difficult too. If you do not offer these events, people cannot come.

Put some events out there, market them well, involve everyone you can, suggest donations, and enjoy what happens.


Patricia Coffie

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