The Shadow
CLIFTON FORGE —Appalfolks of America Association has formed an Arts-Education partnership with WVJT, LLC doing business as Highlands Media Group, Inc.
Appalfolks has signed a commercial lease to rent the commercial building at WXCF studio, located at 1047 Ingalls St. in Clifton Forge.
Appalfolks will establish the non-profit organization’s headquarters there and operate a professional recording studio.
“I would like to thank Big Al, the radio station manager, for spearheading this partnership agreement that will give our Virginia Opry a new home at Big Country 103.5,” said M. Ray Allen, president of Appalfolks.
The Virginia Opry has been commended by the Virginia General Assembly for producing and presenting 25 consecutive years of country music shows.
Appalfolks received the Historic Stonewall Theatre as a charitable donation from Irwin R. Cohen on Dec. 20, 1991, and restored the theatre from a twin cinema to a performing arts facility that featured a professional dance studio on the top floor where classes were held for ballroom dancing, line dancing, folk dancing and clogging.
After making more than $200,000 worth of restoration improvements to the theatre, producing and presenting hundreds of events that included plays, concerts, poetry readings, and dance performances, Appalfolks donated the theatre to the town of Clifton Forge in 2003.
The town restored the name Masonic Theatre to the building and provided Appalfolks with a free office and the right to produce or present 12-16 shows per year in the theatre.
For 28 years the theatre served as the home for Appalfolks, Dec. 20, 1991 until March 1 of this year.
“The new headquarters for Appalfolks will give our non-profit approximately ten times more room than we had at the theatre and enable Appalfolks to establish a professional recording studio that was part of our non-profit organization’s restoration plan for the theatre, something we were never able to accomplish there,” Allen concluded.
Ironically, Appalfolks has rented the facility and begun the needed repairs and modifications required to set up its recording studio in the building where Appalfolks once held its radio-thons to raise money to help restore the Historic Stonewall Theatre.
