WSU Storytelling Festival celebrates 30 years

Jaime Winston BA ’22, Marketing & Communications

Weber State welcomed local school children and the surrounding community to celebrate the magic of stories at the 30th WSU Storytelling Festival March 9 –12.

“The whole aim of the festival is to promote the art of live storytelling,” said Vincent Bates, festival committee chair and professor of arts education. “So, we’re not reading books to audiences, we’re telling live stories, usually without props. This is just a storyteller on stage telling a story, and it really is an art.”

The free festival featured nationally recognized storytellers Adam Booth, Anthony Rocha, and Kim Weitkamp, along with 12 regional storytellers and 80 youth storytellers selected by local school districts to participate.

The festival committee named Sam Payne, host of The Apple Seed: Tellers and Stories radio program, the year’s Storytelling Festival Fellow, allowing him to join the festival on an ongoing basis. Shanna Tobin and Sallee Orr, longtime community volunteers on the storytelling festival steering committee, received the Karen J. Ashton Award, named for the originator of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, for their outstanding service to the festival and commitment to storytelling in the WSU service area.

Valentina Ortiz, who shares her love for Mexican cultures through stories, was the year’s bilingual storyteller. “We always try to have a storyteller who is fluent in Spanish,” Bates said. “A lot of our young people in the area are Spanish speakers.”

In addition to the WSU Ogden campus, events were held at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center and Peery’s Egyptian Theater, and performers also shared the wonder of storytelling with local seniors through the Golden Tales program at Weber and Davis county libraries.

Along with the festival, WSU sponsors storytelling events year-round. Former festival guest Antonio Sacre recently captivated students at Odyssey Elementary School. Next October, the festival committee will welcome Paul Strickland, known for his engaging and comedic style, to WSU. More events are being planned for Weber State students and Weber and Davis counties.

“That we’ve been going for 30 years shows we have the support from the community,” Bates said.