Erich Nunn (Leesville, Louisiana)

Erich Nunn teaches courses at Auburn University on the literature and culture of the American South. His Berea Fellowship work is in furtherance of a book project on race and American roots music. He will focus particularly on materials in the Bradley Kincaid and D.K. Wilgus collections and the archive's commercial country music recordings from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.

Tammy Clemmons and Timi Reedy are homesteaders living in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. Their Fellowship work will focus on documenting the musical careers of Timi's grandparents, John and Frances Reedy from Harlan County, Kentucky. The Reedys were early bluegrass musicians who, during the late 1940’s through early 1960’s, did factory work in Dayton, Ohio where they also became a part of that city's roots music scene that included Appalachian Rock-a-Billy and independent Bluegrass record labels. They will do contextual research in collections such as those of John Lair and Rueben Powell, organize and preserve the extensive Reedy Family audio and print material, and record interviews with Reedy family associates and others toward the end of documenting the musical and other cultural exchanges the Reedys' and their contemporaries were part of in Dayton. Timi and Tammy's blog relates the progress of their archival work.

Meredith Doster is a student in the master’s degree program in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University. Her Berea Fellowship study will be in furtherance of her master’s thesis on the study of music in two Independent Baptist Churches in Watauga County, North Carolina. Meredith is focusing particularly on the conflicts between the four- and seven-shape note traditions of the 19th century as one example of the tension created when traditions and their rituals change. Her study also analyzes the deep-seated ties between land, culture and religion in small, rural communities and the collective impact of those Appalachian qualities on worship practices.