Folksy speakers spin yarns before hundreds at Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival

In her raspy Texas twang, Elizabeth Ellis talked about hissy fits, a humiliating trip to New York City and what it means to be pig-biting mad.

"Usually that only happens when you have a teenager in the home," she said, drawing chuckles from the crowd. "Or if you're dealing with elderly relatives. In many ways, they're much the same."

Hundreds of people from across the country were regaled Saturday with folksy tall tales and truly personal anecdotes that blended humor and sentimentality at the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival. The event continues until 3:30 p.m. today at performance tents at the River Campus and on Main Street near the Red House Interpretive Center.

The fourth annual event featured six speakers, who told stories about their amusing childhoods, eccentric parents, oddball friends and life-changing moments, intermittently eliciting laughter or tears from the crowd. Some used guitars. Others used puppets.

Most simply relied on their vocal cords, a microphone and a lifetime of experience.

Joel Rhodes, a co-producer of the festival and a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University, said the stories authenticity is what draws listeners in.

"There are elements to these stories that you at some point latch on to," he said. "The things that makes the tellers human. When they really share, those are the things we can relate to."

Ellis, for example, also talked about taking her young granddaughter Ruby shopping for Easter dresses, going to church with her mother as a child and visiting a cemetery in Columbus, Miss., to discover the countless Civil War dead buried there.

Willy Clafin, a storyteller who grew up in New Hampshire, told a full tent near the River Campus about the town drunk shooting at targets on Christmas, an experience with a bathtub that had somehow been electrified and his off-the-wall parents.

"These stories resonate with people," said Kathe Brinkmann, a storyteller from Urbana, Ill. "Elizabeth Ellis is great at putting a human face on her stories, and Bill Lepp is just a lot of fun. As for me, I like trickster stories or stories with a twist."

The festival even includes a spot for people from the audience to get up and tell their stories. Jordan Huff, an 11-year-old who attends St. Vincent's School in Cape Girardeau, got up and told a tale about a dove and a crafty coyote. She said after she loves telling stories in front of people.

"I've done it my whole life," she said. "I've been here every year except the first year. I practiced this story at least twice out loud and several times in my head."

Chuck Martin, the festival's other co-producer and executive director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, said 562 people had attended the event by 5 p.m. Saturday. That didn't include the nighttime performance, but Martin said he hoped the event would break 800 total for the three-day event.

Martin said people from 16 states attended the event last year and 800 would top last year's total of 745. The event costs about $30,000 to $35,000 each year and each performer is paid $1,000 a day plus expenses.

But Martin said it's worth it, considering that the event pulls people into town, where they spend money in area restaurants, hotels and other businesses.

But what keeps people coming back are the stories.

"We can talk to people until we're blue, but until they experience it firsthand, they won't know how truly amazing this event is," Martin said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

River Campus, Cape Girardeau, MO

Main Street, Cape Girardeau, MO