Arkansas Traveler

May 26, 2023

Barnstormers,

Congratulations! Today we finished the academic year with flying colors and, just as we started it, a rousing barn owl screech. As we pack up and head into summer, I leave you with some reflections on the tale of the Arkansas Traveler, a piece of folklore that holds special meaning for our school.

The tale, which gained national visibility in the 1870s with the broad circulation of this pair of Currier and Ives prints, goes like this. A well-dressed gentleman traveling on horseback deep in the backwoods of Arkansas comes upon a “squatter” playing his fiddle in front of a ramshackle cabin crowded with his wife (gamely smoking her corn cob pipe) and their many children. The limbs of a dead tree, it appears, have been pressed into service as a makeshift rack for curing hog chops. When the traveler asks for “refreshment and a night’s lodging,” the squatter curtly replies, “no sir, haven’t got any room, nothing to eat.” The lost traveler then asks for directions: “where does this road go to?” Again, the squatter’s reply is unhelpful: “it don’t go anywhere, it stays here.”

But the traveler is not so easily discouraged. Observing that the squatter is himself stuck and can’t finish the melody he has been practicing on his fiddle, the traveler takes the instrument and completes the “turn of the tune” in a display of skill and local knowledge that immediately turns the heart of the squatter:

Why stranger I’ve been trying for years to git the turn of that tune, come right it!
Johnny take the horse and feed him! Wife git up the best corn cakes you can
make! Sally make up the best bed! He kin play the turn of that tune; come right
in and play it all through stranger. You kin lodge with us a month free of charge.

Cultural kinship is the coin of this realm: if you “kin play the turn of that tune,” you “kin lodge with us a month free of charge.” Or as one of our history teachers, Blake Rutherford, sees it, the tale is “a parable of harmony between city and country as an urbane traveler and a backwoods fiddler find common ground in music – a parable that we should take to heart as we continue to grow in Northwest Arkansas.”

The tale is attributed to Colonel Sandford Faulkner (1806-1874), an Arkansas politician whose remains now rest in Little Rock’s Mount Holly Cemetery, and is based on his comical encounter with a backwoodsman while campaigning in the Ozarks during the 1840s. Some historians have noted that Currier and Ives’ caricature of the squatter’s “hillbilly” lifestyle and antipathy toward an outsider tarnished Arkansas’ national reputation. But the tale of the Arkansas Traveler would take a decidedly favorable turn when it was appropriated in 1941 as the honorary title for non-residents who serve as “Ambassador[s] of Good Will” for our state. Franklin Roosevelt, Gene Autry, Maya Angelou, Arthur Ashe, and Ronald Reagan are among the many who have been so honored. The Arkansas Traveler has also provided inspiration for the state song, an ill-fated steamboat, the student newspaper at The U of A, the minor league baseball team in Little Rock, and much more.

The many-layered meaning of this tale also resonates with the origins and progress of Thaden. When I first arrived here from New Jersey to begin the work of creating a school from the ground up, the road into the heart of Northwest Arkansas was not clearly marked. But we would eventually make our way and “turn the tune” by offering a course of study that finds much of its inspiration and source material in the history and culture of our home region. Our signature programs (Wheels, Meals, and Reels), our Community-Based Learning courses, and many other curricular initiatives are intentionally imbued with a local flavor that makes them more enriching, relevant, and palatable. We even found our name in the land where we built our school: Louise McPhetridge Thaden gives us lodging here in the heart of Arkansas history.

Our namesake was herself an Arkansas Traveler in that she spent much of her adult life living in North Carolina and other parts of the United States, reflecting credit on this state wherever she resided. And our students, alumni, faculty, and professional staff are Arkansas Travelers as they journey, far and near, in search of learning opportunities that not only expand the boundaries of their knowledge and expertise but also enlarge networks and good will for Thaden School and our state. Indeed, we are quickly building a national reputation thanks to the adventurous spirit of a Barnstorming community that sees our nation – and our world – as platforms for education. Ours is a school with roots and wings.

Next week I will write with an update regarding faculty and administrative staff for the coming year, many of whom will travel to Arkansas to join our community, and other details you need before fully slipping into summer. Until then, I wish you the best for Memorial Day weekend and the warmer days ahead.

Together we travel!

Clayton K. Marsh
Founding Head of School