The 39th Annual Mountain Empire Community College’s Home Craft Days Festival begins with a Friday evening concert beginning at 6 pm on October 15 in the Goodloe Center. The concert is co-sponsored by Wise Pro Art and MECC. Featured artists are the Hick, Craver, Watson & Newberry Band,featuring three original members of the Red Clay Ramblers; Dale Jett and Hello, Stranger; Sparky and Rhonda Rucker; and Adam Hager. Special guests Joe Good, Rich Kirby, and Tommy Bledsoe. Music continues on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am – 6 pm with White Top Mountain Band, Wolfe Brothers, the Sheets Family, Lee Smith Singers, Rich and the Po' Folks, Papa Joe Smiddy and Reedy Creek, and Mountain Music School Band. Other performers include Todd Meade and the newly reunited Twin Springs Band, banjo expert George Gibson, the Mountain Music Makers, Peters Brother and Lee County Grass, Bill McCall and Southern Country, The Scott County Boys, Anndrena Belcher and the Wild Boys, Glenn Roberts and Darrel Singletary, Richard Phillips and Ron Samples Pam Randolph and Doug Dorschug, Angelyn DeBord, Change of Pace, Charlie Engle and Megan Clay, the irrepressible Roan Mountain Moonshiners, Ken Childress and Jimmy Mullins, Fred O’Quinn and the Bluegrass Travelers, Kentucky’s Sherman Family and Friends, and Moccasin Gap. The Center Stage Cloggers will be featured on Sat. and Sun. In addition to the entertainment, over 200 crafters and artists will sell and demonstrate traditional Appalachian mountain folk arts and crafts, including painting, pottery, needlework, woodcrafts, blacksmithing, broom making, corn grinding and many others. Foods of many varieties are available throughout the festival, including freshly pressed apple cider. Admission is free to all the festival events. Mountain Empire Community College is located on US Route 23 just south of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. For more information, call 276-523-2400 or visit their website at www.homecraftdays.org.