Lunsford Festival: Lunsford Award - Mars Hill University

Lunsford Award

The Bascom Lamar Lunsford Award has been given out since 1980 to individuals who have made significant contributions to the folk, musical, and/or dance traditions of the Southern mountain region.

The 2024 Lunsford Award goes to Danielle Plimpton
Danielle Plimpton, Director of the Bailey Mountain Cloggers, is a 2006 Mars Hill graduate, originally from Pickens, South Carolina. She was a member of the Bailey Mountain Cloggers all four years of her college career, serving on its leadership team. Following graduation, she was hired as assistant director and then named interim director of the team a few months later.

“I am deeply honored to receive such a prestigious award for an art form that has been a passion and purpose of my life at Mars Hill University for 22 years,” Plimpton said. “I am truly humbled to receive this award amongst so many incredible others in the past that continuously preserve the Appalachian traditions in our area.”

Under Plimpton’s leadership, the cloggers have continued an unprecedented tradition of excellence, with a total of 31 national championships won, and an opportunity to add to that total as they compete it future competitions. It’s especially appropriate that Plimpton is this year’s recipient for her work with the Bailey Mountain Cloggers. The dance form now called clogging developed through dance competitions at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival that Bascom Lunsford founded in Asheville in 1928. Lunsford also gave the name “Bailey Mountain” to a 1950s square dance team in Mars Hill that was the predecessor to the formation of the Bailey Mountain Cloggers in 1974. Being one of a few college-based performing clog teams in the nation, with art performance grants and college credit courses, the Bailey Mountain Cloggers serve as ambassadors of goodwill for the college and the dance traditions of the Southern Mountains. During their 50-year history, the Bailey Mountain Cloggers have performed throughout the United States and in countries around the globe, including a trip this past summer to Indonesia. The Bailey Mountain Cloggers Folk Dance Company has established a national and international reputation for American clog dance excellence.

“Being presented with the Lunsford award is the most special award I have ever received, not only because it honors the traditions of the Southern Appalachian dance, but to me it represents the true heartbeat of what I hope the Bailey Mountain Cloggers will always continue to do—to share the traditions of clogging around the world,” said Plimpton. “When we travel to other countries and learn their traditional dances, we may not be able to speak each other’s languages, but through dance, we can come together as a community and share cultures together.”

Past Winners

2023: John Roten + Dr. David W. Robinson

2022: Bobby Hicks

2021: David Holt

2020: Festival was held virtually, due to the pandemic, so no award was given
2019 Loretta Freeman

2018 Brian Hunter

2017 Jeff Atkins

2016 Carol Rifkin

2015 Peter Gott

2014 Nick Hallman

2013 George Banks

2012 Boyd Black / Kathryn Parham (Lunsford Youth Award)