The following story has been prepared for a newsletter that will be sent out to our list prior to Christmas: The 2003 Pioneer Family Reunion will be held on Saturday and Sunday Aug. 30-31 rather than the traditional fourth weekend in August. This was announced by Dan Hamrick, chairman of the reunion who said it will mark the first change in the annual date in its 76-year span. At the same time, the reunion will restore elements of its great past by bringing back old-time music such as picking and singing and/or Bluegrass. And he said the reunion committee has pledged to try to bring together many of the families who are inter-related but never named in reunion literature. The reunion grew out of summer picnic gatherings after church, perhaps as early as the services in the 1830s at the Old Hamrick Barn. But it was first organized as a reunion on the farm of Moore and Susan Hamrick on Point Mountain in 1926. Anna Dodrill, three in 1926, has never missed one. And her childhood friend, Winifred Cheesman, now of Vineland, NJ, has not missed many. It was named the Hamrick-Gregory Reunion in 1938 but it mushroomed into a gigantic event, attracting 5,000 to 10,000 in the late 1930s and sometimes in the 1940s. In recent years, attendance has dwindled from about 250 a decade ago to less than 100 last year. The chief families listed in recent years were: Cogar, Chapman, Dodrill, Gregory, Hamrick, Miller, Riggleman,. Other pioneer families who are related are being asked to join include: Arthur, Conrad, Cummings, Cowger, Cutlip, Dyer, Friend, Given, Hevener, Hogan, Mollohan, Ware, Payne, McAvoy, McElwain, Rose, Skidmore, Ware, to name a sampling of them. Hamrick said the change is being made for multiple reasons. He said the main reason is to reverse the trend of declining attendance year after year. This can be attributed to several factors including a dwindling number of persons in the West Virginia area, and the aging and deaths of a substantial number of regular reunion attendees. ³There have been several things missing from reunions in recent years,² he said. ³One is entertainment. Another is enough time for meeting. Still another is the stark absence of younger, working families.² Hamrick made the motion that was approved by the Pioneer Family Preservation Society Inc. board. He said he had heard complaints for several years from people who have to travel long distances to get back to homes in Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia and elsewhere to get to work on Monday. It has been a virtual impossibility. He said his own sons had difficulty attending because of Monday morning work. Hamrick said he had the same problem during his 31 years in Kansas, attending only twice. But he has not missed a reunion now since 1993. He said he heard some criticism last year of what was described as ³an all-day Prayer Meeting.² One minister told him that there was ³too much prayer and not enough meeting.² People want to visit. He said he believes the Sunday morning service has a place in the reunion but that it should not be forgotten that the old-timers had a celebration of visiting, singing and dancing in the afternoon. One bright light at the most recent reunions, he said, has been the management and growth of the Saturday genealogy fair. It has been managed by Michael Henline of Cowen, president of the Pioneer Family Preservation Society Inc. There were a substantial number of exhibitors last year who had good sales of their books. These included Henline himself, who wrote a book on a cemetery survey and inventory of Webster County, prepared a CD on ³Dr. Dan,² a reference to Dr. Dan Kessler of Cowen; Mark Romano, also of Cowen, who was the author of a book containing some 1,500 pictures of Webster County history; and Skip Johnson of Sutton, WV, former outdoor editor of the Charleston Gazette. Johnson produced a book about Birch River entitled ³River on the Rocks²: and is working on a book on the Upper Elk, where many of these pioneer families settled and populated the countryside. -- [email protected] Dan Hamrick 402 23rd Street NW Canton OH 44709-3818 Telephone: 330-454-2376