A 2009 Fiddle-Off in the Firehall (View Video Here)

June 27, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

A 2009 Fiddle-Off in the Firehall!

Rarely a year goes by when the Smithville Fiddlers’ Jamboree and Crafts Festival doesn’t have to take a pause during the weekend due to a passing thunderstorm. But in 2009, it was the rain that didn’t take a pause at least in the closing hours of the festival forcing the 38th annual Jamboree from the stage to the Smithville Fire Hall for the completion of the finals including the Grand Champion Fiddle-Off.

(The video shown below is the latest in a series of Fiddlers’ Jamboree “special moments” from past festivals to be presented by WJLE through the 4th of July weekend. In this segment, Gailanne Amundsen, the eventual 2009 Jamboree Fiddle-Off winner, competed for the title in front of the judges without a sound system, no LIVE radio or television coverage, and only a handful of spectators after the show was moved due to rain from the stage to the Smithville Fire Hall. The Jamboree came to a close at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, July 5 ,2009)

Gailanne Amundsen of Longwood, Florida won the coveted Berry C. Williams Memorial Trophy that year as the Grand Champion fiddler of the festival. Amundsen made it to the fiddle off by winning the Junior Fiddling competition and beat out the winner of the Senior Fiddling contest Scott Miller of Hanceville, Alabama for the overall top trophy.

The scheduled two day festival that year (Friday and Saturday, July 3 & 4, 2009) stretched into the third day coming to a close just after 2 a.m. Sunday morning, July 5.

Rain and lightning forced a delay in the competition during the preliminaries of the square dancing on Saturday, July 4 and several hours later, as the weather continued to threaten, a decision was made to resume the festival but to move from the stage to inside of the Smithville Fire Hall, where the fire trucks are usually housed. All the contestants in the finals performed directly in front of a table of judges without microphones, and while there was no television or radio audience, a small crowd gathered in the fire hall to hear them.

All the preliminaries, except for the square dancing competition, were concluded before the rains came and six of the eleven square dance teams scheduled had already performed. The others chose to withdraw during the rain delay, along with two of the teams which had previously competed. There was no finals competition for the remaining square dance teams. They agreed to allow their scores in the preliminaries to determine how they would place.

June 27, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

Although DeKalb County experienced a sizeable decrease in its unemployment rate in May, the jobless rate here is still among the worst in the state, tied with Cocke County for 6th highest among the state’s 95 counties at 16.3%.

DeKalb County’ jobless rate for May was 16.3%, down from 22.1% in April but much higher than the 3.7% rate in May, 2019.

The local labor force for May, 2020 was 8,066. A total of 6,755 were employed and 1,311 were without work.

The only counties in Tennessee with higher jobless rates than DeKalb in May were Sevier at 18.5%, Warren 17.6%, Marshall 17.5%, Grundy 17.4%, and Perry at 17.1%.

Record-high unemployment rates across Tennessee in April came down sharply as the state slowly reopened in May 2020, according to preliminary data released by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

All 95 of Tennessee’s counties had lower unemployment rates in May, compared to the number of individuals who could not work in April when many businesses closed in order to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Even with marked improvement, 42 counties had unemployment rates greater than 5%, but less than 10%. Fifty-three counties, more than half of the counties in the state, had rates greater than 10%, but less than 20%.

Weakley County had Tennessee’s lowest unemployment rate in May. The county’s new rate of 7% is 2.5 percentage points lower than it was in April.

Fentress County had the second-lowest figure in May at 7.1%, down from 9.9% the month before. Williamson County’s unemployment rate was the third-lowest statewide. At 7.4%, the rate is down 3.1 percentage points from the county’s all-time high of 10.5% recorded in April.

Sevier County continued to have the highest rate of unemployment in Tennessee. Still, the county’s new rate of 18.5% is a staggering drop of 10.6 percentage points from April’s record high of 29.1%.

At 17.6%, Warren County recorded the second-highest unemployment rate in May, down 7.5 percentage points from April’s rate. Marshall County had the third-highest rate for the month with a rate of 17.5%, a decrease of 6.6 percentage points from the previous month’s rate.

May unemployment numbers dropped in each of Tennessee’s three largest cities. Knoxville had the most significant decrease with its rate changing from 14.7% in April to 10% in May. Nashville experienced the second biggest decrease with unemployment dropping from 16.1% in April to 12.6% in May, a difference of 3.5 percentage points. Memphis recorded a rate of 13.2%, down 1.3 percentage points from April’s rate.

The statewide unemployment statistic from May also decreased significantly. The new preliminary rate of 11.3% is down from the revised April rate of 15.5%.

Nationwide, unemployment decreased to 13.3% in May, down from the 14.7% rate recorded the month before.

Unlike the statewide rate, county unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted.

June 26, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

A Nashville girl won the top Jamboree award as the best fiddler in the National Championship for Country Musician Beginners during the 47th annual Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree and Crafts Festival in July, 2018.

Uma Peters won the coveted James G. “Bobo” Driver Memorial Award, named for the man who started the children’s competition during the 1980’s as part of the annual Fiddler’s Jamboree and Crafts Festival. Members of Mr. Driver’s family presented the award to Peters. She also won first place in the beginners five string banjo contest that year.

The video shown below is the latest in a series of Fiddlers’ Jamboree “special moments” from past festivals to be presented by WJLE through the 4th of July weekend.

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