jill.hoffman@roanoke.com 381-1679

Old-time music curls through the foothills of Mount Rogers like smoke from a campfire.

Fiddle and banjo tunes such as "Sally Anne" even emanate from Mt. Rogers Combined School - a K-12 public school with only 88 students in the community of Whitetop.

Tucked between two mountain ranges, the Grayson County school is believed to have the only old-time music school string band in the country. The Albert Hash Memorial Band carries on the legacy of its namesake, a regional musician and fiddlemaker who died in 1983.

At first glance, visitors to Mt. Rogers may see the standard picture of Appalachia: a rustic little school sheltered by majestic mountains from a fast-paced world. But there's much more going on.

Music is the soul of the school. It radiates outward from Emily Spencer's band room - a converted weight training room where dulcimers and mandolins share space with muscle-pumping equipment.

During a morning band class in May, Spencer, five students and a school volunteer clustered in the tiny room and ran through such toe-tapping tunes as "Johnson Boys" and "Soldier's Joy." Fingers moved nimbly. Students occasionally referred to musical notations, but mainly played from memory. Suddenly the music stopped.

"What happened?" Spencer asked with a smile. No one had an answer, so the music resumed.

Spencer is almost always beaming. The youthful-looking woman, who at first glance might be confused for a student, is a well-known banjo player in old-time music circles. She was part of a community effort to bring music into the school.

In 1980, Spencer and her renowned fiddler husband, Thornton Spencer, who is Albert Hash's brother-in-law, along with Hash and his daughter Audrey, began offering free music lessons Monday nights at the Mt. Rogers Volunteer Fire Department.

"Someone noted that there was no music program at school and everyone thought: 'Why don't we have a band?'" Spencer said.

Mt. Rogers' band program started one day a week in 1982 with Audrey Hash Ham as instructor. Spencer took over about 1994 and expanded it to a daily program in 1999. She gets paid for only one day a week because the school can't afford more.

Spencer teaches students to play music by ear and by tablature - a written system indicating finger placements. The Virginia Department of Education is requiring Spencer, who holds a provisional teaching license, to become fully certified. She's taking online classes.

Mt. Rogers high schoolers get academic credit for being in the band. Many students can't afford expensive instruments, so Spencer buys them at bargain prices from a distributor in New York City. She's bought $150 fiddles for $39.95.

Whitetop has always revolved around Mt. Rogers school, but the Albert Hash Memorial Band has set the building's hallways crackling with music and given residents yet another reason to gather there.

Outside of school, the band has played at colleges, conferences on Appalachian studies, music festivals and wedding receptions. Last year, National Public Radio broadcast a program the band recorded at the Appalshop media and arts center in Whitesburg, Ky. And it played with other country-music bands to a sold-out crowd at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol. Spencer keeps a huge scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings.

The band's repertoire includes bluegrass, gospel and country music, along with old-time, which many of the students' parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles played. Spencer is encouraged to see a new generation picking away clawhammer-style at banjos, because old-time almost died out during rock 'n' roll's invasion in the 1950s.

"I just hope it keeps on going," she said.

Band member Chris Testerman, a senior, has won fiddling competitions and performed in Independence High School's production of "Fiddler on the Roof" this year. His classmates tease that he puts the instrument down only to sleep.

"If I wasn't in the band, I wouldn't be here in school," Testerman said.

"It's just in his heart to play music," said Debbie Bramer, a school volunteer and occasional bass player in the band. "That just takes over."

Bramer drives 1 1/2 hours from Fancy Gap to the school. "This is such a nice school," she said. "It's always quiet. The kids are always respectful."

Students are bused to Mt. Rogers from places such as Mud Creek and Middle Fork mainly on secondary roads.

Teachers brave byways with stomach-roiling curves. Once there, they do a bit of everything. One math teacher is also a special education teacher, school bus driver and yearbook editor. Principal Pat Weaver tells employees: "You may do everything short of cleaning the commode."

Teacher John Purifoy describes his hour-long commute from Bristol as his "planning time."

"It's worth every inch I drive to get here" Purifoy said as he munched on a salad next to his students. "Some people get stressed at work. I get stress-relief at school."

The school is remote but by no means backwoods, with Internet access in every classroom and a distance-learning lab.

But Mt. Rogers' small size and rural mountain setting can be an obstacle. The school is too small to qualify for anything in Virginia High School League athletics except a girls' volleyball team, and the school is often closed in winter because roads are too treacherous for school buses.

Whitetop's struggling economy - partly the result of furniture, clothing and electrical plants leaving or closing - and the school's dwindling enrollment make it hard to fund programs. Mt. Rogers graduates have no guarantee they will find employment in the area.

But music has given many students a passion, a way to make money on the side and a chance to preserve their heritage.

Outside the school, the Albert Hash Memorial Band jammed under a tree at the end of the day. Testerman fiddled behind his back, while two elementary school boys tried to keep pace on guitar and fiddle. Spencer invited the boys to play in the band room one day.

"That gives you some encouragement," Bramer said to Spencer as the group broke up at school closing time.

www.mtrogersschool.org

A music class, from left: senior Chris Testerman, music volunteer Debbie Bramer, music teacher Emily Spencer and senior Robyn Coe.