The faculty, staff, and students were gathered in the S.C. Center for Oral Narration to celebrate the Center's first event in its new home.

"The Center will be a research and resource center for folklorists and storytellers," said Jack Doyle, English professor and director of the Center. "In addition to providing a place for storytellers to practice their craft, the Center will make stories and information available to storytellers. We'll be sponsoring two storytellers a year on campus. We hope to attract storytellers from all over the South, but particularly from South Carolina. Then we'd like to videotape them and have a printed version of their stories available to anyone doing research."

The art of storytelling has been fostered on the USC Sumter campus since the mid-1970s. Dori Sanders, Kathryn Tucker Windham, Billy Richie, and Buford Mabry, among others, have been to the campus to share their stories. The campus also offers a storytelling course.

To be designated as South Carolina's center, the Center had to go through the process of receiving the endorsement of the University and the S.C. Commission on Higher Education. That endorsement came about a year ago. In February, the Center moved into freshly renovated space in the campus' Schwartz Building.

"Storytelling builds a sense of unity, and it's a sacred art that's been going on forever. Getting storytelling established in South Carolina has been my labor of love for 20 years," said Doyle, who helped to establish the S.C. Storytelling Guild, which now has chapters in Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville.

"Storytelling has become a tradition in virtually every state. It's nice to have South Carolina's center anchored in the middle of the state."

Montes, a Columbia storyteller, was the featured guest at the Center's inaugural event. "Shelagh is probably best known for her ghost stories and her stories about The Hag," said Sandy Richardson, assistant to the director of the Center and assistant to the director of USC Sumter Galleries. "Shelagh just returned from a trip to England, where she was researching stories. She came here to try out new stories on our students, get ideas and feedback, and finesse the details in her storytelling."

"There is a difference between a staged presentation and true storytelling," Richardson continued. "The true storyteller is more concerned with conveying the story itself, and less about acting. The emphasis is on the word and the whole story."

Though some people may dismiss storytelling as child's play, many recognize its importance as a chronicle. "Some storytellers start with folktales that have been around for years," Doyle said. "Stories can be about people, places, events, even supernatural beings. But they are all ways of preserving folklore and culture through the telling of stories. Originally, that was how our history was kept: passed down from generation to generation, embedded in the story itself. These stories are records that tell us who we were, who we are, who we might become. They are a vital way to preserve our culture."

The Center's grand opening, which will feature several storytellers, is slated for this fall.