Marker will commemorate High Country storyteller Ray Hicks

The High Country community of Beech Mountain is getting a highway marker to honor famed storyteller Ray Hicks.

Hicks grew up on Beech Mountain on land that had been in his family since the 17th Century. He gained fame by carrying on the tradition of Jack tales, usually featuring stories about a poor but clever boy who always manages to find his way out of peril.

Jack and the Beanstalk is a famous example, but Jack tale variations have been handed down by Appalachian storytellers for generations by locals like Hicks. He was named a National Heritage Fellow for his skills as a raconteur. 

Storyteller Connie Regan-Blake runs the rayhicks.com web site and will host the unveiling of the marker. She says Hicks had an impact on yarn spinners across the world.

“He became such a legend is his own time," she says. "National media all over the United States came to Beech Mountain to the Hicks home place to interview him. He just drew people to him by being himself.”

The marker is going up across the street from the Beech Mountain History Museum, which includes a partial replica of Hick’s homestead.

Hicks died in 2003. The unveiling is scheduled for August 27, just shy of what would have been Hicks’ 101st birthday.