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["Dave Bing is a fiddler and fiddle maker from Melissa, West Virginia, outside of Huntington. He now lives in Harmony in Roane County, West Virginia with his wife. As a young man, he spent time learning from many elder fiddlers in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, including the Hammons Family of Pocahontas County. Dave Bing has been a member of numerous old-time bands such as The Bing Brothers with his brothers Tim Bing and Mike Bing, Gandydancer with Gerry Milnes, and The High Ridge Ramblers with Mark Payne and Andrew Dunlap."]
["Vernon John Burky was born to a Swiss family in Helvetia, West Virginia in 1925. He grew up speaking Swiss on his family farm, where his parents raised animals and managed a sawmill, and his grandparents operated a cheese house. They made Helvetia cheese, a type of Swiss cheese, similar to Emental, that was made throughout the Helvetia community and a staple in the diet of residents. As a child, Burky raised chickens and tapped maple trees on his family farm. As an adult, he was an active winemaker, a common pursuit in the Helvetia community. During his working years, Burky worked as a truck driver for a saw mill and a coal company. He learned to play fiddle as a child and started playing in the Helvetia Star Band, the local dance band for generations and the namesake of one of the villages two dance halls. He still plays in the group, which performs regularly for Helvetia square dances and events. This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted with foodways practitioners in Helvetia, West Virginia, as part of the Helvetia Foodways Oral History Project in partnership with the Southern Foodways Alliance. Learn more: https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/helvetia-west-virginia/"]

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["Joe Herrman (master artist, b. 1949)  of Paw Paw in Hampshire County and Dakota Karper (apprentice, b. 1992) of Capon Bridge are participants in the 2020-2021 West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program, studying old-time fiddle. Herrmann is a founding member of the Critton Hollow String Band and has taught old-time fiddle to many private students and at the Augusta Heritage Center. Dakota Karper, a Hampshire County native, has been playing old-time fiddle for 20 years and runs The Cat and the Fiddle Music School. Herrmann and Karper apprenticed together previously in 2004 (when Karper was 11) through Augusta Heritage Centers former Apprenticeship Program.See the West Virginia Folklife Program feature on Herrmann and Karper: https://wvfolklife.org/2020/12/03/2020-folklife-apprenticeship-feature-joe-herrmann-dakota-karper-old-time-fiddle/"]