Southern Agenda

What’s Happening in the South: August/September 2024

Goings-on in the region and beyond

By Larry Bleiberg, Caroline Sanders Clements, Haskell Harris, Jordan P. Hickey, Jennifer Kornegay, Lindsey Liles, T. Edward Nickens, Steph Post, Kelundra Smith, and Amy Brecount White


Hotels
Alabama

Mobile, Mon Amour

Before charting a new course for the Admiral, a landmark hotel that opened in Mobile in 1940, Jon Weitz, the president of Avocet Hospitality, dug back even further. The port city’s past whispered of French naval leader Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, who settled the area in 1702 at King Louis XIV’s request. “Easter eggs throughout celebrate this aspect of Mobile’s story,” Weitz says of the hotel’s newly unveiled French-inspired renovation. Those subtle nods include reproductions of Versailles paintings—including Allegory of Louis XIV as Apollo on the Chariot of the Sun—that echo the palace’s opulence. The lobby lighting, mimicking leaves falling from sprawling branches, evokes Mobile’s abundant live oaks, while a six-foot portrait of the Sun King himself oversees check-in. Looking glasses in the new Le Moyne’s Chophouse (steak and seafood with French flair) reflect Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors. And Swarovski crystals dripping from the restaurant’s chandelier illuminate d’Iberville’s role in Mobile’s hospitality heritage. “They’re a nod to the beads he gifted area Native Americans to establish friendships,” Weitz says. “The property isn’t just in Mobile; it’s of Mobile.”

theadmiralhotel.com


An illustration of the Beatles on a plane
Small Towns
Arkansas

The Beatles Have Landed

As the story goes, just after midnight on Saturday, September 19, 1964, a trio of teenage boys saw lights circling Walnut Ridge, their tiny northeastern Arkansas town. Interest piqued, they hoofed it over to the local airfield just in time to catch a glimpse of the world’s most famous quartet disembarking from their chartered plane and boarding a smaller aircraft, a planned rural stopover to avoid the usual crush of fans. But by the time of the Beatles’ return flight that Sunday, John, Paul, George, and Ringo faced hundreds of church-skipping onlookers to see them off. “The story has taken on a life of its own,” says Peyton Tillman, who cochairs Lawrence County’s tourism committee, and adds that it became a “jumping-off point.” The town renamed a street Abbey Road, dedicated a pocket park with strutting silhouettes, and created a Guitar Walk in the shape of a 115-foot-long Epiphone Casino, John Lennon’s favored instrument. It also annually hosts the Beatles at the Ridge Festival (September 21) to mark the aviation anniversary. Is it all a bit of a stretch? Perhaps. But every town needs a reason to, ahem, come together.

lawcochamber.org


Gardens
Florida

Power Plants

As she envisioned a refresh of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens campus in downtown Sarasota, president Jennifer Rominiecki had just one request for her team: Make the project as green as possible. “They exceeded my wildest expectations,” she says—several years, a three-building complex, and fifty thousand square feet of solar panels later, the space is now the first botanical garden complex in the world to generate more energy than it consumes. A new plant research center harbors more than 125,000 pressed specimens along with the planet’s second largest collection of liquid-preserved specimens. At the Green Orchid restaurant, named for the rare plants in Selby’s 4,400-strong orchid collection, instead of using gas or flame for hot dishes, cooks use electromagnetic fields to heat pots and pans. Seasonal greens and veggies come from the onsite rooftop garden—in late summer, garlic chives, arugula, eggplant, and edible cosmos flowers grow just steps away.

selby.org


Festival
Georgia

The Doc Is In

Long before Doc Holliday cemented his notoriety in the saloons of the Wild West—most notably during the shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881—the outlaw was much more likely to be slinging forceps than pistols at his dental practice in quaint Griffin, Georgia. “We’re not really a tourist destination,” says Cindy Jones, president and CEO of the Griffin-Spalding Chamber of Commerce. “But we’ve had a lot of people come from overseas and stateside to see where Doc Holliday grew up.” A self-guided driving tour includes Tinsley Street, where the young John Henry Holliday may have spent his early years, the location of the Presbyterian church (now a fire station) where he was baptized, the site of the dental practice where he earned his nickname, and the cemetery where he’s rumored to rest. And on September 7, the tenth annual Doc Holliday Festival will fete the city’s native son with live music, horse rides, a beauty pageant, a barbecue competition, and, not surprisingly, reenactments of some of Holliday’s most infamous gunfights.

dochollidayfest.com


Sporting
Kentucky

Black-Powder Bonanza

From the eighteenth century to the present day, there has never been a time when someone in America was not producing the long rifle. It is “the original American art form,” says Jason W. Gatliff, publisher of Muzzleloader magazine and a board member of the Contemporary Longrifle Association. Fashioning a flintlock required a high level of expertise, not only in engineering for the triggers and locks, but also in the decorative elements of woodworking and metalsmithing. “It’s a living art form, too,” Gatliff adds, “in that it is growing and evolving, even though it’s based on a legacy concept.” From August 8 to 10, the Contemporary Longrifle Association Show will host a modern rendezvous of many of the finest traditional firearms makers. Held in the Central Bank Center in Lexington, it also attracts artisans producing all the accoutrements that attend black-powder firearms: carved powder horns, custom knives, traditional leather goods, original paintings and pottery, and works by silversmiths and coppersmiths.

longrifle.com


Style
Louisiana

Cool Beenes

It’s fitting that Louisiana, long home to casts of colorful characters, claims the late design legend Geoffrey Beene, who grew up in rural Haynesville. Beene went on to study fashion in Los Angeles, New York, and Paris, and founded his eponymous brand in 1963. His impeccably tailored garments won every major accolade, including eight Coty Awards, and drew fans such as Lady Bird Johnson and Glenn Close. “A Southern gentleman to his core, he was greatly influenced by his heritage and love of Louisiana,” says Michael E. Mamp, director and curator of the LSU Textile & Costume Museum. “He repeatedly used familiar flowers of the South, such as camellias and magnolias, as well as fabrics such as seersucker, linen, and cotton, and familiar prints of the South, such as gingham, polka dots, and checks.” A tribute to that heritage, Coming Home: Geoffrey Beene, at the museum in Baton Rouge, runs until early 2025 and features ensembles from a private collection paired with sketches that illustrate the broad strokes of his forty-year career.

lsu.edu/textilemuseum


Arts
Maryland

Free For All

Designer Earle Bannister joined his first fashion show in 1989, when he was a senior at Baltimore’s Morgan State University. In the following decades, his men’s clothing, inspired by the elegant wardrobes of 1940s and ’50s black-and-white movies, developed a following, wowing crowds at the city’s house music parties. Now the bespoke tailor will reach a new audience at Artscape in Baltimore, one of the nation’s largest free outdoor arts festivals, where he’ll take part in a panel discussion and join eleven other designers for fashion shows—among the scores of events scheduled for the annual weekend affair, which celebrates forty years this August 2–4. Other offerings include short films, improv, comedy, a gamers’ fest, live music, and DJ sessions at multiple venues. “It’s a massive, massive production—literally and figuratively the hottest weekend of the year,” says Rachel D. Graham, CEO of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts. Bannister says he hopes his fashion looks, ranging from silk pajamas to smoking jackets to formal wear, will transport his audience. “I want them to feel like they’re in Italy, in Paris. I’m ready to raise the world’s expectation of what comes out of Baltimore.”

artscape.org


An illustration of a woman with one foot on a desk with a typewriter and a film camera in the background
Film
Mississippi

Eudora Welty, Revisited

When fans envision Eudora Welty, one of the titans of Mississippi literature, they might picture an elderly woman at a typewriter by the window of her house on Pinehurst Street in Jackson. “But she was so much more than that,” says Anthony Thaxton. Or, to put it another way: “She was not just a little matron. She was a badass,” says the writer W. Ralph Eubanks in Eudora, the new documentary Thaxton produced with his wife, Amy, and the restaurateur and author Robert St. John through the Institute for Southern Storytelling at Mississippi College. Drawing on unprecedented access to Welty’s home videos, family papers, and personal photos, the documentary unveils the woman behind the words. She supported civil rights, refusing to read in front of segregated crowds. She engaged in a romance of letters (some four hundred) with a married man. She won a Charleston dance competition while studying business at Columbia in New York. She watched her father die during an ill-advised blood transfusion. “She had this youth, this life of loves and lost loves and tragedies,” Thaxton says. “She was also just so funny and witty. My favorite photo we found is of Eudora on a drum set.” The documentary also includes interviews with Mississippi stars such as writer Kathryn Stockett and artist William Dunlap, plus Welty’s niece Mary Alice Welty White and biographer Suzanne Marrs. “Most of the people in there knew her, and because of that, there is this intimacy,” Thaxton says. “It’s like you’re sitting around a table with her friends.” Eudora and its companion book debut at the tenth annual Mississippi Book Festival (September 14). The wider public can catch the film on Mississippi Public Broadcasting starting in October, and nationwide next spring.

southernstorytelling.mc.edu

msbookfestival.com


An illustration of a fig standing above a mansion
Food
North Carolina

Figging Out

In midsummer, when the windswept barrier island’s sixteen fig varieties ripen across yards and parks, ferries shuttle visitors out to the annual Ocracoke Fig Festival (August 2–3). At the laid-back and delicious affair, fig mimosas and fig beer flow, and the locals (self-dubbed O’cockers) share stories in their distinctive brogue. Chester Lynn, a tenth-generation native, shopkeeper, and author of Figments of Ocracoke, roots saplings of fig varieties such as Sugar, Lemon, and Brown Turkey, and sells them at his shop, Annabelle’s Antiques. He never misses the festival’s Fig for All event, when Fig Cake Bakeoff samples get passed around. Afterward, the bravest attendees do-si-do to Ocracoke’s version of square dancing, with the signature local moves “dive for the oyster” and “dig for the clam.”

ocracokepreservationsociety.org


Hotels
South Carolina

Riverside Retreat

The drive from downtown Charleston to the Dunlin, an Auberge Resorts Collection hotel on nearby Johns Island, winds beneath live oaks and past fields, forests, and farm stands. While the getaway, which opens this summer as a collaboration between Auberge and the Kiawah River development, takes on the air of a refined river house, it maintains a close connection to the surroundings. The interiors, for instance, designed by Amanda Lindroth, find inspiration in water views. “There are mint-green, coral, and hydrangea-blue fabrics and linens mixed with sisal and wicker accents,” says Kemper Hyers, Auberge’s chief creative officer. “In our early conversations, we wanted the design to look and feel like an incredible summer home.” In addition to kayaking excursions and fishing trips, guests can join in clam-harvesting workshops, cheese-making classes at the nearby “Goatery,” and community Lowcountry boils—or simply head to one of the three on-site restaurants where seafood arrives straight from the Atlantic, and fresh produce comes courtesy of the farmers down the road.

aubergeresorts.com/the-dunlin


An illustration of a person holding a tablet with a vulture perched on it
Opening
Tennessee

A New Roost

“Cute” isn’t the first word that comes to most people’s minds when they think of vultures, but that’s because they haven’t met George. Thirty-seven-year-old turkey vulture George Walter Paddington is a superstar of the bird world, with more than 33,000 followers checking his @george_ the_vulture Instagram account to watch him nibble bananas, untie shoelaces, pick the Super Bowl winner, and get into mischief daily at the American Eagle Foundation. “George has educated thousands of people and changed their perception of birds of prey,” says avian care specialist MaryBeth Gosnell. “The birds’ stories resonate with our audiences because they show their fun and silly sides.” George’s adoring fans can now visit him and other raptors at AEF’s recently opened headquarters. Nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains foothills, the foundation’s new facility on fifty-seven acres in Kodak gives a behind-the-scenes look at raptor rehabilitation. Beyond guided tours, AEF’s headquarters also features a Raptor Roost play area with an obstacle course and a human-scale eagle’s nest. Already proving popular is the center’s Raptor Museum and Aviary, where more than forty nonreleasable birds of prey live, including Challenger the Bald Eagle, Petunia the Peregrine Falcon, Poe the Raven, and, of course, George.

eagles.org


Traditions
Texas

Breakfast of Champions

In the vastness of downtown Houston, it’s easy to spot the Breakfast Klub because of the line wrapped around the building. Locals arrive daily for the famous Katfish & Grits, Wings & Waffle, Biskits & Gravy, and a strong sense of connection. Husband-and-wife proprietors Marcus and Melvinie Davis have run the restaurant for more than two decades, but serving good food is only part of what they do. Every summer, they also host an HBCU Freshman Send-Off for high school seniors who will be attending historically Black colleges and universities that fall. “HBCUs help build the African American community, and with this event, we celebrate the choices of these students and show them our support,” Marcus says. Studies have shown that students who establish peer networks and accountability partners have a higher chance of completing college on time, and in the Davis family alone, one kid is headed to an HBCU this fall, one is currently attending, and one HBCU graduate is now in medical school. This year’s event takes place Saturday, August 3, when, after hours, students will be able to eat breakfast for dinner and connect with fellow HBCU-bound students from the area.

thebreakfastklub.com


Outdoors
Virginia

Cabin Fever

When Virginia opened its first state parks in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built welcoming cabins for vacationers. “Each one was a little different,” says Kelly McClary, a director with Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation. “They used the stone and timber that was on-site.” But after decades of use, the buildings were showing their age, and this year, the state finished restoring fifty-five cabins at Douthat and Fairy Stone parks. “We wanted to keep the historic quality and integrity of the cabins, and provide twenty-first-century amenities,” says McClary, who oversaw the $15 million plan that’s already won preservation and sustainability awards. “Those buildings have met the test of time.” The multiyear project maintained log walls and hardwood floors, and modernized several cabins for visitors with disabilities. Workers also updated plumbing, electric, and air-conditioning systems, added open kitchens with stainless-steel appliances and granite counters, and remodeled bathrooms. The project continues this fall at two more of the state’s original parks, First Landing and Westmoreland.

dcr.virginia.gov


Food
West Virginia

Tiny Town, Big Dreams

Wardensville’s scenic crossroads location might seem like just a pass-through, but since 2016, the nonprofit Farms Work Wonders has been imbuing it with energy as it trains Appalachian youths for careers in farming and hospitality. From May to October, FWW’s Second Saturdays at Wardensville Garden Market provides “a cool return to linking our community with the food we’re producing,” says farm manager Hannah Pike. For a sit-down experience, FWW’s nearby year-old restaurant, Mack’s Bingo Kitchen, serves barbecue-braised collard greens and a road-trip-worthy fried chicken sandwich.

farmsworkwonders.org