On Wednesday afternoon, students strolling across campus might have heard a faint melody carried on the gentle September breeze.
As students drew closer to the Treehouse Snack Bar, the sound of banjos, dobros and the rhythmic strum of acoustic guitars grew louder.
Those who weren’t scared away from their mid-day sushi run by the banjo twang (see: Deliverance, 1972) would have discovered a crowd of around 75 students, many of whom were toting a variety of instrument cases, gathered in front of Memorial Hall.
Students, faculty and staff gathered there Wednesday to dedicate the new photomural that commemorated the Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country music department.
“The ETSU Walls of Time: A Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Photomural” can be found inside of Memorial Hall, which also houses Brooks Gym and is located next to the Treehouse Snack Bar at the heart of campus.
The ETSU Bluegrass band began the jamboree, filling the air with the kind of music that the program centered around.
“The dedication of the photomural is to the people who first got really excited and moved about bluegrass music,” said Jack Tottle, one of the founders of the program.
Bluegrass became popular with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys’ first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in the 1940s.
The mural, Tottle said, was to commemorate all the founders, but also all of those who have ever fallen in love with that style of music.
“You hear something,” Tottle said, “and it just touches you so deeply that you can’t get away from it.”
However, founders and lovers of bluegrass, old-time and country music are not the only ones who were mentioned at the mural’s dedication – the ETSU students are also an essential part of ETSU’s bluegrass endeavor.
“We have a lot of pictures of our students and alumni over the years interspersed with the pioneers from the ’40s and ’50s,” Tottle said.
Lastly, the mural is dedicated to the faculty who “are the ones who enable this program to exist.”
At the event, two interesting facts about well-known university individuals were revealed: President Paul Stanton can jam on the acoustic guitar and the lap steel guitar, and Wilsie Bishop, vice president for health affairs, can rock out on the hammer dulcimer.
“I’m glad I don’t have to play the hammer dulcimer today,” Bishop joked when she took the stage.
She also teased Raymond McLain, the director of the Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music program, saying that she was looking forward to the program’s expansion even though it would mean finding the program more room on campus.
And space is something the program will definitely need in the future. The enrollment for the fall was 424 students, which is four times the enrollment of 2001.
Not only is the ETSU program going to expand dramatically, Stanton said, but it is inspiring other programs similar to it all over the country and all over the world.
Other programs are popping up in Boston, Kentucky and Ohio. However, ETSU’s legacy is going to remain as the first university to develop the program and the first university to offer it as a minor.
The program, and all it brings to ETSU, was made possible by a dedicated faculty who hammered, picked and strummed the program into existence.
For more information on the program, check out ETSU’s Web site and search Bluegrass, Old Time and Country music.

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