This past weekend, the Macon County Community Building welcomed visitors from all around to the Franklin gun show. Presented by Gem Capitol Shows, the event saw waves of vendors, gun enthusiasts, and many who just wanted to see what the fuss was about. In the parking lot, license plates from neighboring states like Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia, and even further distances like Florida, Alabama and Indiana were evidence of visitors who joined the locals in selling, trading, buying, and browsing through the caches of firearms and accessories. Vendors had their wares laid out across the gym floor as well as the three rooms that also served as space for the 57 different vendors who set up shop.

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On Sunday, March 10, the Brasstown Concert Association presents Voice of the Turtle. For 35 years the internationally acclaimed ensemble has been researching, performing and recording the haunting, compelling music of the Sephardim, Jews expelled from their Spanish homeland in 1492. Accompanying themselves on folk and classical instruments from the Mediterranean ad Middle East, as well as contemporary guitar and violin, the trio sings in the large and varied repertoire of languages of the Sephardic diaspora.

“This is the last of our concerts exploring music “From the Black Sea and Beyond,” says BCA Board member Carole Hall. “The ‘turtle’ of the ensemble’s name is actually the turtledove, a symbol of exile, the harbinger of peace and spring. Voice of the Turtle appreciates not only the aesthetic qualities of Sephardic music but also the value of preserving and protecting cultural traditions of all communities away from their country of origin.”

“Woman to Woman - The Southern Craft Revival,” a lecture and slide presentation by Anna Fariello, will be presented Thursday, March 7, at 7 p.m., in the Macon County Public Library Meeting Room, 149 Siler Farm Road, Franklin. The free program focuses on the emergence of handmade crafts as an important industry in the southern Appalachian region, and commemorates Women’s History Month. Light refreshments will be served.

From the 1890s to the 1920s, the southern Appalachians witnessed a revival in the making and selling of handmade crafts to bring cash into rural communities. A movement largely organized by women for women, it spawned cottage industries throughout the region and produced a new wave of American pioneerism, as the women of the Revival defined personal, professional, and social roles for themselves, and created opportunities for less privileged women.

The Jackson County Public Library is hosting a Spring Craft Event with James Stewart-Payne on Tuesday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the Community Room. This program is free of charge.

James Stewart-Payne will be showing participants how to do two fun, easy crafts utilizing recycled, reclaimed and new scrapbooking papers. The first craft will be a bouquet of paper flowers from pages of old magazines. The second craft will be a simple garland of hearts to hang in your home. Some paper supplies will be provided. Participants are encouraged to bring old magazines, large scrapbooking papers, scissors, and hot glue gun or stapler, if they have them.

Space is limited to 16 participants so for more information, and to sign up for the event, call the JCPL at (828)586-2016.