Oral History Project
Beginning Summer 2025
This summer, the Greater Banner Elk Heritage Foundation in collaboration with the Appalachian State University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center, Avery County Historical Society and the Beech Mountain Historical Society will collect stories from Avery County surrounding 2024 tropical storm Helene. This project will collect five-to-fifteen-minute digital recordings at each of the three museums as a way to document and preserve our Avery County neighbors’ experiences with the flooding and aftermath of Helene. These digital recordings will be collected and transcribed by Appalachian State University and the audio files and transcripts will be added to the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at App State’s Special Collections Research Center where the interviews will be made accessible to the public for posterity or future projects. Our hope is that sharing these stories will allow our community to heal while also providing knowledge to future generations.
How it works
On June 7, 2025, the Banner House Museum will host a special “Listening Day” to kick off the recording project. We welcome anyone from Avery County who wishes to share their experiences during or after the storm to sign up for a recording timeslot at the link below. Participants may share their story as they wish or they may look at the list of interview questions (below) to get an idea of where to start. Volunteers will be present to lead participants though their story using the interview questions or they may choose to record alone in our recording studio.
In addition to our Listening Day, we welcome community members to visit any of the three recording sites through the 2025 season. Please see below for hours of each museum.
Listening Day Time Slot Sign up-COMING SOON
Helene Interview Questions-COMING SOON
Banner House Museum 7990 Hickory Nut Gap Road, Banner Elk
Wednesday-Saturday, June 7 to September 13, 2025
Guided Museum Tours ($5 per person) 11 am to 2 pm
Listening Hour 2pm-3pm (free admission to Recording studio and Exhibit Room featuring an exhibit on the 1916 and 1940 historic floods)
Beech Mountain Museum
Avery County Historical Society (Newland)