By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Lead Reporter - Salina Post
The founders of the Kansas Storytelling Festival in Downs, Kansas, could not have imagined its growth throughout the last 30 years. What started with a few orators in a tiny gazebo has evolved into a multi-venue event with hundreds of attendees.
Over two days, the festival adds another 300 people to Downs' population count of 800, with visitors and storytellers gathering from across the United States to hear stories ranging from fictional tall tales to mysterious local legends.
"Happy, sad, a lot of tall tales, maybe some embellishing of stories going on," said Storytelling Festival Steering Committee member Brenda Guiterrez. "It's the range of emotions and lots of laughter throughout the day."
The 30th Kansas Storytelling Festival kicked off its two days of narrations at the Downs Memorial Hall with storyteller Bil Lepp from South Charleston, West Virginia, and his comedy-fueled tall tales from his childhood.
Lepp took the stage with just a microphone and a backdrop of locally sewn quilts to help with the echoes inside Memorial Hall. He began telling the story of a young boy named Wallace who caused some mayhem at his elementary school in West Virginia.
"Almost all of my stories are based a little bit on something that I did or somebody I know," Lepp said. "I just take a little thing that happened to me somewhere along the way and just start asking myself, 'What if, what if, what if?' and it just grows into a story."
Lepp said he travels nationwide to tell stories at festivals and enjoys watching the audience absorb and react to his tales.
"A lot of artists never get to see their audience enjoy their art," Lepp said. "A painter, journalist, or a movie director, they don't always get to watch people, but I can stand on stage... to see the people react to it, and that's my favorite part."
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Five featured storytellers from across the United States visited Downs for the festival this year, including Lepp, Andy Offutt Irwin, Kim Weitkamp Gum, Anne Rutherford and Dino O' Dell.
Alongside the featured tellers, 13 more orators and Master Storytellers joined the festival, voicing tall tales on four different stages in downtown Downs.
"It's [The Kansas Storytelling Festival] grown to four venues," Guiterrez said. "We have Memorial Hall, our Senior Center, our Historic [Train] Depot and one of our church fellowship halls."
Guiterrez said that artists switched venues every hour throughout the day so audiences could follow their favorite artists around town or stay in one location to see several performers.
The Kansas Storytelling Festival is unique to Lepp, and he noted the focus on the local community and the support he sees from the region's residents.
"It's a really neat festival, and we go to lots and lots of festivals in lots of small towns, but this one is probably the smallest town," Lepp said. "So many people come out to this festival, and people come from all over the country to come to this festival. There aren't enough motels in this area to house everybody who comes to this festival, which I think is great."
Downtown Downs' parking spaces were filled with visitors for the festival, muffling the sound of passing trains that flow across Morgan Avenue with laughter, gasps of surprise and the continuous murmur of voices telling tales of both faraway places and hometown backyards.