By Alison McFerrin

The Selma Times-Journal

The show must go on, and Kathryn Tucker Windham made sure that Alabama’s Tale Tellin’ Festival would continue — even without her contributions.

The Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival began in 1978, largely due to Windham’s influence. Windham had spoken at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tenn. in 1974 and, along with a few friends, decided that Selma needed the same thing.

Selma’s first storytelling festival drew several hundred people, and it’s been a popular annual event ever since.

“It puts us back to verbal communications, which is crucially important, because if you cannot speak well and you cannot read well and you cannot communicate, then you will not go very far,” Nancy Reynolds Bennett said. Bennett’s parents helped start the festival with Windham.

Since Windham’s death, people may be wondering — is everything going to change?

“It was Mrs. Windham’s request that ArtsRevive be asked to accept the festival under their umbrella,” Edie Jones said.

Jones had been the main volunteer in charge of the festival; when she told Windham that she needed to shift gears, Windham came up with a new plan to ensure the future of the festival.

In May, ArtsRevive agreed to take on the festival, Jones said.

“It’s going to continue,” Bennett said. “It will be very different without Kathryn, but it will always be enjoyable.”

The festival’s name will change slightly, to “The Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival presented by ArtsRevive,” but Ann Thomas with the festival said she hopes the interest won’t change at all.

“I’m hoping that people will want to come to honor her memory,” Thomas said. This year’s festival is set for Oct. 14-15, and its format will be much the same. “It’s been successful in the past, so we’re going to continue with that.”

But Selma isn’t the only city that has gained an annual storytelling festival. Cities all over Alabama and even into other states now have their own festivals — and Windham has impacted all of them.

The Pike Piddlers Storytelling Festival draws crowds of 900 to its Friday and Saturday events in Brundidge and Troy, where Windham spoke twice, in addition to speaking at their Christmas event.

“The thing I liked so much about Kathryn is she would tell funny things on herself, and she never was pretentious — she was just Kathryn Windham,” said Jaine Treadwell, features editor of The Troy Messenger and one of the founding members of the festival.

Lawrence Bowden, Brundidge Historical Society president, said people come from all over to their festival, and Windham was a big part of that.

“It was certainly to our benefit to have Mrs. Windham come and be the attraction for it,” Bowden said. “People always call and ask us, ‘Is Mrs. Windham going to be there?”

Windham was also instrumental in beginning the storytelling festival in Huntsville at the Trinity United Methodist Church, where a one-time event turned into a festival that’s been popular for 16 years.

“We just kind of looked on her as the patriarch of our festival,” associate pastor Joe Estes said. “You connect with what she’s talking about. She’s telling about real people. She may take some creative license with some of the details, but the people she tells about — they are real people.”

Huntsville’s Saturday festival draws as many as 600 folks all the way from Indiana and Louisiana, Estes said.

“We don’t feel like we’re competing with anybody else,” Estes said. “We feel like the more storytelling events we have, the better.”

Another festival began in 2007 in Athens, where Wayne Kuykendall, chairman, had to do a little cajoling to get Mrs. Windham to fit them into her schedule. He talked her into it by sending her a letter in the voice of Jeffrey the ghost.

“Everything was kind of built around her,” Kuykendall said. “The audience would ask questions, just interact with her.”

At the Athens festival, all schoolchildren can attend for free, and in the past, Thursday night has been Kathryn Tucker Windham night.

“She made the festival what it was,” Kuykendall said.

Selma’s Alabama Tale Tellin’ Festival will be different without Windham, but storyteller Connie Regan-Blake says stories will still be told.

“Kathryn was that thread that went all through every single festival,” Regan-Blake said. “So I think it’s got to change. I think it will be a real different experience not having Kathryn there.”

But Windham has left her mark.

“Her ending for every performance I ever heard her do, she would always say, ‘Now go home and tell stories,” Regan-Blake said. “The story telling movement … there’s still a vitality to it.”