Harmony All Year Long: Behind the Scenes of the High Mountain Hay Fever

The smell of crisp rain wafted in and out of the white tent in clear view just down Main Street this past weekend as The Bluff exploded with Bluegrass music and Bluegrass lovers alike Thursday through Sunday afternoon.

Ten months ago, the Board of Directors, made up by Ron Terry, Ron Thomason, Polly Miller, Jacke Barnes, Don Belveal, Heidi Clare, Kirk and Sherry Meier, Michael Hayes, Peggy Kavookjian, Dana Diehl Derick, and Gary Taylor, sat down and asked, “Do we want to do this again?”

There was a clear consensus: “By all means, we want to do it again,” explained Ron Terry, President of the High Mountain Hay Fever Festival Association (HMHFFA) Board of Directors.

At that time, Ron Thomason, former board president, Dry Branch Fire Squad founder, and a force behind the festival’s creation and continuous success, began identifying and contacting entertainers who “might want to come and enjoy all this,” Terry remarked while motioning to the Sangre de Cristo backdrop which makes the HMHF festival so unique and beloved.

While ticket sales do not open until December, once Thomason returns from Grey Fox, a larger Bluegrass festival in Oak Hill, New York, the weekend following the HMHF festival, “he knows exactly who he wants for the lineup,” said Jacke Barnes, volunteer, treasurer, and beer tent celebrity. Contacting and securing entertainers usu­ally takes a couple of months for Thomason, Terry explains, performers have schedules, “some of them are booked into 2027…usually when they commit, they’re here.” Throughout Terry’s 12 years as president of the festival, he remembers only one group that has backed out due to illness reasons.

Otherwise, the festival has continued strong since 2002, except for 2020, of course.

Described as the “spearhead” of the fes­tival, Thomason is the one “that’s pulled all this together,” Terry said. Without “trying to be a big Madison Square Garden,” Terry said the board seeks a diverse group of qual­ity acts. The festival is not set up like a big municipal auditorium – that is one unique quality of this event: the intimate experi­ence. Yet, “If we brought in Alison Krauss…it would be out of proportion to the commu­nity,” Terry said. Parking, housing, food, Port-A-Johns: “we wouldn’t have ways to accommodate,” Terry said.

This year’s headlining act, Rhonda Vin­cent and the Rage, was a “real coup, and it was [Thomason’s] connection to her that we got her,” Barnes explained. Vincent, crowned the “New Queen of Bluegrass” by The Wall Street Journal in 2000, is a nine­teen-time International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) winner, and her band earned the 2017 Grammy for Best Blue­grass Album.

While some performers, such as Vin­cent, bring their own sound technicians, Geoff Fusco, owner and operator of Moun­tain Production Company, who has con­trolled the festival’s soundboard for the past three years, explained that he spends the weekend striving to ensure “the per­formers can hear what they need to hear,” and trying to maintain “an overall pleasant experience.” In a tent that can seat 800 to 900 festival goers, there is an important “balance of trying to get everything heard and trying to avoid feedback and the chal­lenges of using different styles of micro­phones, because certain microphones will feedback easier than others.”

While no festival ever goes exactly as planned, Fusco said, “the negative stuff that does happen usually just gets forgotten.” But the “artists who put on a very good perfor­mance,” Fusco remarks, “those are the ones that stick out more than anyone else.”

Originally, the Wet Mountain Valley Saddle Club’s rodeo grounds served as the festival grounds. However, inches of horse stomped dirt combined with rain made for “a muddy place to be,” Terry said. While rain was clearly a remembered highlight for the third year as well, the festival moved that year to The Bluff space, now beloved by many.

Known all those years ago as “the west end project,” Barnes said, the field was “just prairie…it rained…it was muddy, sticky muddy.” The following year, a group joined together to relandscape the space. “Then it went under a conservation easement,” Barnes said. “From where the parking is way down below over to the Smokey Jack Observatory…is all a con­servation easement.” To save the space from becoming a hotel, Barnes explains that a couple bought it and, to the Board’s relief, turned it over to a land trust where it has since been protected under a conser­vation easement for “six or seven years, maybe a little longer.”

The 12 board members make for “the best board to work with because I don’t have to do anything,” Terry said. While Terry surely said this out of humility and not truth, each board member knows what they’re supposed to do: “It’s just clockwork for them.” For example, Terry explains that he will attend a board meeting and the lodging coordinator will say, “‘I’ve got housing for entertainers,’ and I hadn’t asked her to do it.”

As the board moves into the new year, things begin to progress quickly, and the quest to identify volunteers begins. “There are five volunteers who work four days in the merchandise tent right here. There are six or seven who volunteer over in the beer tent. I have 20 that work at the front gate,” Terry recounts. The volunteers are crucial to the festival’s success because they come in, they give the festival four or five days of, “whatever they can, not asking for a penny, they’re not asking for any free passes… They’re not even asking for a beer…they just want to help out.”

Everybody knows their job, “that’s the beauty of this volunteer board,” Terry said.

Out of two separate hour-long conver­sations with Terry and Barnes, “volunteer” was said thirty-eight times – an evident reminder of just how pivotal each volunteer is to the festival’s continuous success. Addi­tionally, volunteers seem to love what they do. One even said they thought it was fun beforehand, but then they volunteered and realized it was even more fun.

Created in 2002, the HMHFFA serves to allocate “the proceeds from this event to provide children medical care through the Custer County Clinic,” states the HMHF website. Until 2012, all proceeds were allo­cated only to the Custer County Clinic until the Association expanded to benefit other local nonprofits.

According to the Community Investment Highlights on the HMHF website:

• In late 2015, the Wet Mountain Valley Community Foundation in conjunction with HMHFFA created the High Mountain Hay Fever Children’s Health Fund.

• In 2016, Wet Mountain Valley Com­munity Foundation Grants from this fund were awarded to Club America for the Kid’s Swim Program and also to the Custer County C-1 School District for their Sources of Strength program and the Summer Fun program.

• In 2017, Wet Mountain Valley Com­munity Foundation Grants were awarded to Club America (now Altitude Community Fit­ness) for the Elementary School Swim and Triathlon programs. The Custer County C-1 School District also received Grants for the Sources of Strength program and the Summer Engagement Outreach program. Other recip­ients include the Custer County Early Child­hood Council and the Saddle Club.

• 2018 grants included awards to the Sol Vista Mental Health First Aid, Custer County School Hydration Project, Dental Hygiene for Youth, the Country Strong Equine program, Altitude Community Fit­ness Swim Program and the Custer County School Summer Fun program.

Allocated through a granting process, the grant committee and the festival asso­ciation have a few overlapping members, such as Barnes. “It’s so interesting because out of that committee, there are very few of us that…disagree on what will be funded,” Barnes said. “I would say probably 90% of the grants are funded or mostly funded or partially funded.”

With every year’s History of Giving report present on the HMHF website, in total, “it’ll probably be close to a million” this year, Terry expressed. Once the dust settles in late August or early September a report from Barnes, the festival treasurer, will be compiled, and “our only task is to decide how much money we want to give to the children’s fund, because that’s where it’s all going,” Terry said, including every tip from the beer tent.

When volunteers put up the tents, “they’re most concerned about where the beer tent is, that the beer tent is in the right spot,” Barnes said through laughter.

Serving as a social space for festival goers all weekend, Barnes estimates the beer tent’s annual revenue to be around $15,000, not including tips. Originally, there was a “big family presence here,” Barnes said, referring to the beer tent volunteers. This year, Rob Bidner and his wife Karen smoothly transi­tioned to serve as “beer tent coordinators.” The beer tent blew one keg Thursday eve­ning and three immediately Friday morning, Barnes explained. Bottles will be offered in their place “if they blow a keg this evening,” Barnes said Saturday afternoon. “We won’t open that keg tomorrow,” because with “only a quart gone, it costs you the full amount.”

Directly west of the beer tent, stand two tents designated for performers. Michael Hayes, the “private chef” and volunteer hosting the performers tent, highlighted the scrumptious meals prepared for performers and volunteers. Shredded chicken and a toma­tillo green chili, “my recipe,” Hayes said, as well as Costco pulled pork with Stub’s barbe­cue sauce, pickles, and Hawaiian buns.

There were sandwich fixings available all day long as well as hot meals avail­able Friday and Saturday. With gluten-free options, local fruits and vegetables from the farmers market, including 28 tomatoes, and numerous personal recipes, Hayes shared his love of cooking all weekend long. And following advice from Thomason, Hayes made sure performers had ongoing access to lots of cookies and candy.

“You got the best green tent we’ve ever been too,” Barnes said, referring to what performers frequently say to her about the food and atmosphere.

When asked what festival goers may find surprising about the performers, Hayes said, “I think what would be maybe a little surpris­ing is just how kind and down to earth and grateful the musicians are.” The Bluegrass community is small and tight knit – “It’s kind of amazing,” Hayes said, “just how sponta­neous some of the performances [can be].”

Frequently when band members are missing, musicians from other bands step in – showcasing the caliber and comradery of musicians and performers. When talking about The Price Sisters’ performances, Hayes remarked in awe that the guitar and banjo player who performed with them “had never played with The Price Sisters and they [just] got up on stage.” The spontaneity and commitment to perform – really perform – is evident among every singer and musician who took to the stage this last weekend.

“This festival has a really good listen­ing audience,” said Joshua Luckhaupt, one of the fiddle players and singers for My Brother’s Keeper. “When we start playing, everybody’s quietly listening to every single word, you don’t get that everywhere,” Luck­haupt remarked. My Brother’s Keeper had a memorable experience last year for their 2024 HMHF debut, and “it almost felt too good to be true,” admitted Luckhaupt. Then they returned this year and after playing their first song, the audience reacted with equal praise. And Luckhaupt realized, “it’s real,” this audience is special.

This festival is one of a kind: the cause, the volunteers, the vendors, the High Moun­tain Hayseeds, the Sangre de Cristo Moun­tains, the loyalty of festival goers through rain or shine, the top tier Bluegrass music, the stage presence of those like Evan Lanier of Dry Branch Fire Squad, and maybe even the beer. The HMHF Bluegrass Festival is a finalist for this year’s International Bluegrass Music Association’s Event of the Year award, a well-deserved honor, no doubt. Here’s to next year and thank you to all.

– Brett LeVan