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ELKINS -- The 52nd annual Augusta Summer Heritage Workshops officially got underway this week with Cajun & Creole and Classic Country Week.
2025 marks the final year the workshops will take place on the Davis & Elkins College campus. Activities will move to downtown Elkins in 2026 with the Augusta Heritage Center, located in the old Wilt Building on the corner of Davis Avenue and Third Street, serving as the hub.
"We've had an incredible opening to this year's activities," Augusta Heritage Executive Director Seth Young told The Inter-Mountain on Tuesday. "We have a bunch of folks up from Louisiana and participants have come in from all over the world."
One of the highlights of this week's Cajun & Creole and Classic Country activities will be tonight's annual Fais Do-Do Gumbo Party, that will feature Cajun music jamming on the Halliehurst Mansion porch on the D&E campus. All donations taken in at the event, which is scheduled for 8 p.m., will support the Augusta Scholarship Fund.
"Fais Do-Do is an annual event that we do where the Cajun Cooking Class prepares a meal centered around gumbo," Young said. "It's a community event and everybody is invited to come out to it. We do it for donations and those donations go to support our Cajun Scholarship fund. So that's an event that can be experienced not only by the participants that are taking the Augusta Heritage Center Summer Workshop series, but also our local community as well."
Jam sessions can be found across the D&E campus throughout the week, while two scheduled events are set to take place during the final two days of the Cajun & Creole and Classic Country week.
On Thursday there will be a Cajun and Country Concert and Honky-Tonk Dance at Harper-McNeeley Auditorium beginning at 7:30 p.m. On Friday night, a Honky-Tonk and Cajun Dance will take place at the Augusta Dance Pavilion at 8 p.m.
"There are stand-alone dances every night through Friday and this is only the first week of three," Young said. "So next week we will be doing it all over again with our International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning Bluegrass week. And after that we will have Blues and Old-Time Week."
Young said there will be concerts on Tuesdays and Thursdays over the next two weeks and mentioned a special concert with the U.S. Navy Band "Country Current" on Friday, July 18 at 8 p.m. at the Augusta Dance Pavilion.
"They (Navy Band) are going to play both bluegrass and classic country hits," Young said. "It will be part seated concert and part honky-tonk dance. The band will also be dropping in to provide instruction for a new program we launched this year called the Bluegrass Kids Academy. We have around a dozen students, 18 years old and younger, who are coming up here to learn traditional bluegrass music."
Young said another notable event is the Bluegrass Extravaganza Concert that will take place on July 17 at Harper-McNeeley Auditorium.
"That concert has a very unique format where all the instructors are on stage at once and they all play some of our favorite bluegrass hits," Young said. "A lot of those instructors are Grammy Award winners and Grammy Award nominees, and most are some of the biggest names in the field today."
During Blues and Old-Time Week, Young pointed to July 22 as a big night. A Blues and Old-Time Concert will take place at Harper-McNeeley Auditorium at 7:30 p.m., and will followed by a performance by the House Party Blues Band in the Augusta Pavilion
This year's event will conclude with the annual Augusta Heritage Festival and Craft Fair on Saturday, July 26 at Elkins City Park. The Festival is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will feature fun for the entire family.
"The Festival and Craft Fair will feature over 40 vendors that have been juried in and have made some of the best handmade products in the region," Young said. "There will also be kids activities and the August Fiddle and Banjo Contest. After the Festival at 8 p.m. we will have the end-of-summer Square Dance at the Augusta Pavilion."
For more information on any of the Augusta Heritage Center's events, visit augustaartsandculture.org or its Facebook page.