When the country music legend Ernest Tubb first began to play bluegrass, some people thought his name was just a sincere place to take a bath. Things have changed.
The Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music program at ETSU is proof. Started in 1982 by Jack Tottle, the program has grown immensely over the years.
Raymond McClain, the current director of the program, said that when he came to ETSU as assistant director in 2000 there were only six or seven sections of band. Now with the increase in the number of students there are 16 sections of band, including an old time band, a country band and, for the first time, a Celtic band.
Students pursuing a minor in the bluegrass program take classes in everything from guitar lessons to music theory. “It is not an audition program,” said McClain. “You can enroll in classes like you would for any other university courses. If we auditioned everyone we would keep out some of the most talented and hardworking students.”
The program attracts students from all over the region, country and even the world. There are students from everywhere from Virginia to Alaska to even Japan and New Zealand.
Joel Anderson, a history major from Spartanburg, S.C., explained that the bluegrass program is the reason he came to ETSU. “I played music before I came and thought about it as a profession, but there were not any music programs that dealt with cultural music or roots music,” Anderson said. “I came across Berea College’s Appalachian Studies program and found it interesting so I searched the Internet for Appalachian Studies and came across ETSU, saw there was a bluegrass program and was hooked.”
Evie Andrus, a public relations major from Minot, N.D., had the same reason for going so far away from home to finish college. “My brother lived down here and he wasn’t in school, but he knew a lot of kids that were in the program,” Andrus said. “He kept telling me you need to come down here, Evie, this is where you need to be.
“Two weeks into my junior year at North Dakota State University, I dropped out. I moved home and worked for awhile, then came down here to go to school.”
The program is celebrating its 25 year anniversary this year and its success can be attributed to the instructors that are dedicated to helping their students learn.
After being asked what his duties as director of the program entail, McClain listed some of the many responsibilities he is entrusted with, but then stopped and said, “I teach our students. It is my ultimate responsibility. All of these things that I do add up to my first obligation, which is to teach.

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