Go Loco this Labor Day Weekend in Mountain View!

Loco Ropes! invites you to compete in our First Annual Loco Tower Games Sat, Sep 3rd, featuring The HotShot FreeFall BullsEye and The PlanksPeak ClimbingWall Challenge. $100 Cash prizes will be awarded to the Winners. Registration begins at 10am. This Labor Day Weekend – Go Loco at Loco Ropes in Mountain View, Arkansas!

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..

Uncle Dave Macon Days Banjo Champion, Lukas Pool from City of Mountain View, AR Congratulations, sir! Well played!

Mountain View is well know for it’s elaborate Parks & Recreation facilities. It is not only beautiful but has something to offer for all ages as well as many handicapped accessible activities. Take a look at the map below and plan your day in our fantastic park system.

Download a PDF map of Mountain View Parks and Recreation Facilities

Val sewing at Ozark Folk Center

Valerie Jane Clark, 61 of Mountain View, Arkansas, formerly of Cohasset, Minnesota, passed away Thursday evening, June 16, 2011 at her vacation home in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Leonard & Valerie

She is survived by her husband, Leonard Clark of Mountain View, AR; and three daughters – Lisa , Kristina & Stephanie. Valerie and Leonard are well know in Mountain View. Valerie has worked at the Ozark Folk Center in several capacities and was an integral part of the local sewing & quilting communities. Len & Val were also instrumental in founding Grace Lutheran Church in Mountain View

Valerie basking in the sun in 1950

Visitation will be Monday, June 20, 2011 from 4-6p at Rowe Funeral Home, Grand Rapids, MN and will continue on Tuesday, June 21 from 10a until 11a funeral service at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Cohasset, MN. Rev. William C. Zeige will officiate.  Burial will be at Itasca Calvary Cemetery, Grand Rapids, MN.  In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to Grace Lutheran Church in Mountain View, AR, or to Itasca Hospice Foundation.

Watch this amazing video mapping presentation in Prague. Mind blowing!!

Folk music is what comes to mind when people think about Mountain View.

Lots of toe tapping and relaxing, “sort of a magnet for musicians,” says Judi Munn a potter and resident in Mountain View.

And there’s good reason since it is the folk music capitol of the world. “They say you can’t stay here very long and not learn an instrument,” says Munn.

That’s exactly what happened to Munn, who moved to Mountain View to be the Folk Center’s potter. Decades later she still makes her living as a potter at the Folk Center, but now she plays the banjo.

Pottery is just one of the many historical crafts happening at the Folk Center all year long. ”What you see here are methods that were used to make people’s lives easier in the early 18 and 1900′s,” says Grady Spann, who also works at the center.

Also at the center you can enjoy everything from soap making, to spinning and weaving wool together from real goats.

But back to Munn’s pottery for just a moment. She calls it “cutting edge” because of their new green friendly kiln. “Instead of running on propane we are running on vegetable oil,” says Munn.

It is one of only a dozen in the country and as for the oil, “We get it from JoJo’s Catfish Wharf. Which is right down the road from us,” says Munn.

Down the winding hilly road we go to check out JoJo’s, when we not only find steaming hot catfish, but we find people from Jonesboro who made the one tank trip to Mountain View. “Just the beauty of it and enjoy being outside and on the river,” says Cindy Lewis the Jonesboro resident.

But this Jonesboro woman says it’s what’s living inside the river that keeps bringing them back, “You can go to Jacks and go fishing on the White River.”

The clear rushing White River is just behind JoJo’s and so is Jacks Fishing Resort. Bart Rand, who works at Jacks as a fishing guide, says he will gladly set anyone up with a pole, a can of corn and a boat and says the likely hood of catching a Trout is good, “always an abundance of trout to catch.”

But we didn’t get off Rand’s boat without making sure to take in the stunning scene of the clouds dancing on top of the trees. With trees on our minds it is what one Mountain View business is capitalizing on while also trying to usher in a younger crowd. “The mission was to get that younger crowd in the area excited about something,” says Luke Kremer.

It’s called Loco Ropes and for just about $8 to $40 you can find yourself either walking or zipping from tree to tree. “Get out of your comfort zone and learn a little about who you are these courses,” says Kremer.

While the ropes course may push your comfort zone to the limit at least the drive there won’t, “Just a hundred miles and it’s less than a gas tank to come up here,” says Grady Spann.

As for the promotion of this town that’s Cathy Drew’s job, but she says it’s no job at all, “It’s a friendly, friendly environment…people will stop and talk to you.” She says Mountain View’s quaint historical stone buildings and the feeling of escape promote itself, “When you step into Mountain View it’s like stepping back in time.”

Some call it a sleepy town, but with music like this coming from the refreshing Ozark Mountains it’s hard to sleep.

“You can just tap your toe to the rhythm and have a great time.”

“Will You Love Me” by the Vespers…Awsome Video! Full Screen HD Available.

Glen Branscum passed away yesterday due to a long term illness. Glen was a highly respected Mountain View resident and log time friend of Jimmy Driftwood. He leaves his long time wife and musical partner, Nellie. He had also been the curator for the Historic Jimmy Driftwood Barn, a local venue open to anyone with a folk, bluegrass or country act to share with the community. He will be sorely missed!

Making Mountain Music

Arkansas artisans craft McSpadden dulcimers by Marti Attoun

Music as sweet as birdsong drifts through The Dulcimer Shoppe in Mountain View, Ark. (pop. 2,876), where McSpadden Mountain Dulcimers have been made and played for nearly 40 years.

“This is truly an American instrument,” says owner Jim Woods, 67, about the icon of Appalachian and Ozark folk music handcrafted by the shop’s artisans.

“The instrument is still evolving,” Woods adds, “but a lot of dulcimers today are patterned after McSpadden designs.”

In 1962, Lynn McSpadden built his first dulcimer as a student at Duke University in Durham, N.C., during the era’s folk music revival. His roommate, Elliott Hancock, played guitar, and McSpadden wanted to strum along on dulcimer. Since he didn’t have $80 to buy an instrument, he used a photograph as a pattern to build his own three-string walnut dulcimer.

“It had two frets in the wrong place,” recalls McSpadden, 73, a native of nearby Bethesda, Ark.

Today, the fretwork is precise on the more than 55,000 McSpadden Mountain Dulcimers that have been made by the nation’s largest dulcimer maker. More than 150 dealers in the United States sell McSpadden dulcimers, which come with lifetime warranties.

McSpadden first sold dulcimers via mail order by placing advertisements in Sing Out!, a folk music magazine. Believing the Ozark Folk Center State Park would spur interest in traditional mountain music, he built The Dulcimer Shoppe a mile from the soon-to-open park in 1972. McSpadden’s brother, Larry, and roommate Hancock were partners in the business venture.

Not much has changed at The Dulcimer Shoppe since Woods and his wife, Betty, 62, bought the business in 2000. Like Lynn McSpadden, Woods had built dulcimers as a hobby and welcomed the opportunity to leave his high-stress electronics job in Dallas, Texas, and head for the Ozark hills.

“I really enjoy making the instruments, but what I like most is helping someone find the music in the instrument,” Woods says.

While he helps a new dulcimer owner pluck the notes to “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” craftsmen build the instruments a few feet away behind a wall of windows. George Looney, 56, and Richard Stoltze, 58, have had a hand in building thousands of McSpadden dulcimers.

“I’ve been using this same hammer for 38 years,” says Looney as he taps metal frets into grooves with his cobbler’s hammer. “Where my index finger touches the metal head, I’ve worn a groove in the hammer.”

He and Stoltze have worked side by side in the shop for 35 years. A 1970s photo shows the shaggy-haired young men in the same spots where they work today, sanding, gluing and clamping fretboards and sound boxes.

Though their handwork hasn’t changed much through the decades, the craftsmen have introduced dozens of instrument styles. Five luthiers, including Woods, build standard and three-quarter-size dulcimers in teardrop and hourglass shapes. Featuring flat or scroll pegheads, the instruments are fashioned from cherry, redwood, spruce, walnut or exotic woods decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays. The Dulcimer Shoppe also produces a dulci-banjo, which is played like a dulcimer and sounds like a banjo.

Dulcimers are beloved, not only for their clear, sweet sound, but because they’re relatively simple to play. Players pluck or strum the strings, typically four, with one hand, while fretting the instrument with the other. Instead of using fingers for fretting, some musicians use a piece of wood, called a noter, to play the melody on ballads, hymns and fiddle tunes.

“It’s a lot easier to be the best dulcimer player in the room than the best guitar player,” Woods says.

Carolyn Shields, 56, of Batesville, Ark. (pop. 9,445), bought a McSpadden Mountain Dulcimer four years ago and taught herself to play during the car ride back home.

“It has such a distinctive sound, so sweet,” says Shields, who shares her love of dulcimers by entertaining at nursing homes. “It’s as if you were sitting in the hills with no traffic and listening to the birds. It blends with nature.

“Playing a mountain dulcimer is the sweetest sound in the world.”