The East Tennessee State University Presidential Distinguished Lecture Series presents “An Evening with Kathryn Windham” on Tuesday, March 18, at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Center for the Performing Arts on State Street in Bristol.
One of America’s most beloved storytellers, Windham is a native of Thomasville, Ala., and now lives in Selma. She was the first dues-paying member of what was then called the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling in Jonesborough and served on the board of directors for eight years.
She was a featured teller at the second annual National Storytelling Festival in 1973 and has taken part in the festival almost yearly ever since. She has told stories in 26 states as well as in Canada and Germany.
“The storytelling I grew up with was relaxed, spontaneous, and natural, one of our favorite forms of entertainment,” Windham writes in her book Twice Blessed. “When I was a child, everybody I knew told stories. Television had not yet been invented, and I even remember quite plainly the first radio our family ever had. It was an Atwater Kent with a big round speaker.”
Windham graduated from Montgomery’s Huntingdon College in 1939 with a B.A. in English. Her journalism career began when she was hired as a reporter for The Alabama Journal in Montgomery the next year.
She began as a police reporter, the first woman in the state to cover the police beat for a major daily newspaper.
She became publicity director for the Alabama War Bond Committee in Birmingham before taking a job with The Birmingham News, as state editor and aviation editor.
Her weekly column, “Around Our House,” was syndicated statewide. In 1959 she joined the staff of The Selma Times-Journal, where she won several Associated Press awards for reporting and photography.
From 1973 to 1977, Windham worked in community relations for the Area Agency on Aging with the Alabama-Tombigbee Regional Planning and Development Commission, assisting in setting up Meals for the Elderly in 12 rural Alabama counties.
In 1978 she helped organize the Alabama Tale-Tellin’ Festival in Selma and has been a featured teller at the event each year. Her book “Alabama: One Big Front Porch” earned the Alabama Library Association’s award for best non-fiction in 1975.
She was the recipient of the University of Alabama’s Society of Fine Arts’ Alabama Arts Award in 1990 and the Alabama Humanities Award in 2000. She was inducted into the University of Alabama’s College of Communications Hall of Fame in 2001 and in 2007 was named International Woman of Distinction by Alpha Delta Kappa.
Windham has been awarded honorary doctorates from Huntingdon College, the University of Montevallo, and Spring Hill College in Mobile. In 1996 the National Storytelling Association bestowed on her its Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the author of 25 books and has told stories on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
“An Evening with Kathryn Windham” is free and open to the public, and no ticket is required. A reception and book-signing will follow the program in the Paramount lobby. The Paramount is located at 518 State Street in Bristol, Tenn. For more information or for special assistance for those with disabilities, call (423) 439-6440.

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