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Interview with Sandra McMahan

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  • Sandra McMahan 1 Name of interviewer: Sarah Wallace (Kaitlin Putnam is present) Name of interviewee: Sandra McMahan Date of interview: June, 2017 Length of interview: 37:11 Location of interview: Little Canada Summary: Sandra McMahan talks about growing up in the remote Little Canada section of Jackson County. She relates her experiences that led her to become a teacher. And McMahan talks about her family’s band, Mountain Faith, how they got started, and their experience being on America’s Got Talent. Start of interview SW: Alright, so we got to get this background information first. And what is your name? SM: Sandra McMahan. SW: Alright. Where were you born? SM: At the time, it was called CJ Harris Hospital, Sylva. So here. SW: And where did you grow up? SM: Here. Little Canada. Little Canada section. SW: Didn’t your dad own a farm? SM: He had property up there. My grandpa, Anita, did you interview Anita too? SW: No, somebody else… SM: Ok, it was our grandfather that owned, in fact, oh my gosh, several pieces of property up there. And over the years sold it. That’s basically what he did was buy and sell, trade land and animals and farming type things. SW: All of Kaitlyn’s questions are basically farming questions so that’s good. SM: Oh, now that would have been my mother’s side of the family. SW: Oh, well. SM: My dad… Sandra McMahan 2 KP: What does he do? SM: Not a whole lot with farm… he worked road construction. So, a lot of the roads on the parkway were, he built. He can tell you about road construction all day. [discussion about another interview] SW: Ok, well, my first question, what was it like growing up on a farm? SM: Well, I did grow up on my grandparents’ farm. Our little section, our little piece of land was right next door. So, where my grandpa had this massive farm, we had like, two acres, and he had like a hundred. So, I did grow up on a farm. SW: What did you guys grow? SM: Grandpa grew a lot of the… He did the silage, for animals. So, he did a lot of that. And he raised cattle. So, he did the buying, and selling, and raising of cattle. And most of the things that he raised was just for our family. So, we just grew things for our own… I mean, I never went to… In the summer months when I was out of school was the only time during the whole entire year that I would get to come to Sylva with my mom. I mean, I grew up, and I went to school, and I was up there. That was the biggest treat in the world was just to get to come to Sylva on Fridays, because she did grocery shopping on Friday. She only came out to town once a week, and so, if you ran out of anything in between, you just did without. So, we only got the basics too. Flour, sugar, milk, I mean, she made everything at home. SW: Oh, my gosh. I bet that was good, though. SM: Oh, it was really good food. She cooked in the wintertime on a wood cook stove to save power, and she heated my bath water on a wood cook stove in a dish pan. So, she cut the hot water heater off. Got in trouble if I left a light on in a room. We burned oil lamps. Because my dad was the only one that worked at the time. Their education I think, his was third grade education, and hers was sixth or eighth grade. So, that was as far as their education went, so. SW: And now you teach. SM: Yea. And well, I’m almost finished with my administrative degree. Well, and my brother was the first person from our section of the county to go to college - that grew up in Little Canada, to go to college and complete college. And he’s an engineer now. So, our family was kind of unique to the area, because my parents, I guess, were just…didn’t have the opportunities. Like, my mother would’ve been a nurse. She would tell us that all the time. “If I had the Sandra McMahan 3 opportunity to get to go to school.” So, they really pushed, even though I didn’t go until later in life. But that was their hope and dream for us was to get to go to school. SW: How many people were in your family? SM: Three. Well, five total. Mom, Dad, and I had a brother and sister. Both older. SW: So, you were the youngest? SM: Mm hmm. SW: Did you guys… Did you come from a musically inclined family? Because your whole family now, like, your daughter and… SM: Not my immediate family, but my dad… My dad’s uncle so, my great uncle, he wrote a lot gospel hymns that are in songbooks today, that are in a lot of the churches. He wrote a lot of those old hymns, really old ones. And they had a little blue grass gospel band that traveled and sang. That was on my dad’s side. And then, on my mother’s side, Mary Jane Queen, I don’t know if you’re familiar with her. She’s a musician that grew up on Caney Fork. She died a few years ago. But they’re very popular in this area. Like, her music was in a movie. I’m trying to think of the name, maybe. It’s not been that long ago, but you girls might not be familiar with it. Song Catcher. Her music was in the movie Song Catcher, and she wrote a lot of ballads. So, there was a lot of stuff going on, but my family never really… I never got to learn. I think my sister took a few piano lessons. I always wanted to. That was my dream. My dream was to be a country music singer, but that didn’t happen. So, it is kind of nice to see my family enjoy and doing things now. SW: They got pretty famous pretty quick. SM: Ah, they did. We had a good time. We had a really good time. SW: Like at the beginning of school, when America’s Got Talent was still on, you got extra credit if you voted for them. SM: Are you serious? Ah, that will make Summer cry. That is so sweet. SW: Everybody was behind you guys. SM: You know, they’ll come to your school. They go to schools everywhere. They do. They went yesterday…Tuesday, to Enka Middle School. But they went to Rosman High School. They went to Blue Ridge, because I transferred up there this year. So, they’ve been up there. They were supposed to go to the Early College, but the dates didn’t work out for this year. But yea, you guys are at Smoky Mountain next year, tell whoever gets things together. They’ll come during your school day free. Just let them know. Sandra McMahan 4 SW: And I always see their tour van, like the bus going everywhere all the time. SM: Well, any town that they go into, I contact schools ahead of time to see if they can come in, do a little mini-concert, meet-and-greet, and just hang out and have lunch, you know, that kind of thing. And so, usually people are very open. SW: Well, hopefully they bring their own lunch. SM: Hey, it’s better than my cooking. SW: I doubt that. SM: That’s funny. No, I know, I know. They don’t season anything, that’s the thing. SW: Well, if you actually had… Like didn’t buy food you knew. I don’t know what the steaks are made out of. SM: It’s not steak. SW: They could be some turkey, what are they? Turkey feed or something? SM: That’s funny. SW: I don’t know. It’s pretty sketchy. Not to change the subject, but… What was it like living in Little Canada? You already answered this questions, but like, so far away from town? SM: Until… Our schools consolidated, so see, I went to Little Canada Elementary up until sixth grade. And then, they closed that school and consolidated with Cullowhee, and at that time it was a K12 school over on Western’s campus. So, I thought that the way I grew up, and the way that I lived was how everybody lived. I had no realization that there was even a world out there, you know. That name brands mattered, or… Really. I mean, I played in the woods all day, and just climbing trees, and just doing all this stuff, and I had no idea that you should be wearing Nike name brand, or that there were swimming pools. I mean, I just had… We had never been on vacation, I mean, I didn’t go anywhere. I had never done anything at all. SW: Western didn’t have swimming pools? SM: Well, yea, but I didn’t know that, until I got here. When I came in sixth grade it was just like a whole culture shock, I mean shock. To hear the kids talking about some of the places they had been, or… I think maybe, I had been to the movies twice in my life by the time I reached sixth grade. So, I had no idea that kids would get dropped off in a car at school. I thought the bus was the only way. That was just a shock. “What? Who’s picking you up? Why do they pick you up every day?” I mean, it was a totally different life. It was like, a secluded life. You know, when your school’s there and you’re not getting to come down to town, you’re not doing all these things. Now, having older siblings, I would hear some of these things, but they never wanted to Sandra McMahan 5 take me because I was eleven and thirteen years younger. So, I never got to do any of the things that they did. It was different. I mean, it was very secluded. SW: So, was high school, did it hit you like it did in middle school? SM: No, I mean eventually… I started working when I was fourteen years-old so I that could have some of those things because I knew my parents couldn’t afford to do that for me. So, to have some of the name-brand things, save to buy a car, and that sort of thing. My mother actually went to work with me the summer that I was thirteen years-old at High Hampton in Cashiers. And so, she got a job too so that she could drive me to go to work. So, we worked together during the summer months and on weekends, until the Inn closed. So, in high school, I mean, it was, you know, I was starting to fit in a little bit better. At first, I was made fun of, I mean, terribly. I remember getting off the bus the first time, when we came to Cullowhee. The very first day, and kids being lined up looking for the hillbillies, the Little Canada kids that were coming. You know, just waiting on us. SW: That’s so sad. SM: It was a little hard. But eventually, I don’t know if it was because Anita was my cousin and she was here. And Anita didn’t do a lot of things growing up. She did more than I did, but they were on a fixed income too so, they didn’t do a whole lot of things either. Other than playing with cousins in the summer time, that was about it. But by the time I was a sophomore at Cullowhee High School, I was Miss Sophomore, I was on the Homecoming Court. So, things started to kind of… I’m a people person so, I to try to kind of overlook and overcome things, and talk to people, which is something I get from my dad, and you’ll see that when you meet him. He likes to talk and tell stories. So, high school was better, I guess I could say. I wanted to go to college, I really did, but I felt like my family couldn’t afford to do that, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do that either. So, I ended up not going until many years after, fifteen years after I graduated. SW: What did you do before you went to college, between that time? SM: I got married right out high school, and I worked at…in the bank. I got a job right out of high school. I graduated on Friday night, and I started teller school on Monday morning to work for First Union. And so, I worked in the bank for a while, and then, I worked my way up to assistant branch manager at Macon Bank, a different bank. And so, then, I had the kids and I just quit working for a little while, and stayed home with them, and then I went back to school to teach. That was my second thing I was going to do. I was going to be a country music singer first, and then, I was going to be a teacher. So then, I went back to do what I’d always wanted to do, which was to teach. SW: Well, how did you meet your husband? Sandra McMahan 6 SM: Through a mutual friend at a bank, at Macon Bank I was working at the time. SW: What did he do? SM: He owns the High Country Tire Shop. Remember? He still has that, so he owned a tire shop. That’s how we met. SW: That’s cool. Other than your family on your mother’s side, how did music become so important to your family, like now? SM: I think I pushed a lot. And then, my husband, his side of the family, they had always played music, you know, something, and sang, a lot in the churches. And so, I had always wanted to play piano or guitar. So, I wanted to make sure that my kids had some kind of musical ability. I didn’t care what it was, but I forced piano on them, and I made them take piano lessons until they got to the point where they were like, “We’ll play something. We just don’t want to play piano.” So, at that time, there were two girls, sisters, the Fiddling Dill Sisters. And they were playing music and we saw them at Mountain Heritage Day, and my daughter was like, “I want to play the fiddle like that beautiful girl.” So, we took lessons from her, and I put all of them in lessons for fiddle, and then Brayden is like, “I don’t want to play the fiddle. I want to play the banjo.” So, they started branching off, and my husband said, “Well, I’m going to pick up the bass, and work with them and get them going.” And that’s kind of how it all started. Just because, I just wanted… I had a dear friend tell me one time that music was a good way for people to discipline themselves with practice, you know. To become a little bit more of a disciplined person, and so then I thought, “I want that structure for my kids.” And it just took off. SW: Yea, it definitely did. Okay, well, since your family made it onto America’s Got Talent, how has it changed your family’s life? SM: They’re far busier than they’ve ever been. Like I sit here right now, and they’re in Syria, Virginia, seven hours away, at a festival. So, I mean, they’ve had a lot exciting things happen. They’ve been overseas since the show. SW: Really? Where did they go? SM: They went to Qatar, near Dubai. Right next to Iraq. And they went the weekend that France was attacked so, I’m at home just on pins and needles the whole time. But they did get to do that. They played the national anthem for the Panthers/Falcons game, and did a half-time show for that game. They played for the Atlanta Braves, the national anthem. They’re going to get to play again, a little mini-concert. They were supposed to play this past Sunday with Chris Stapleton. Which he started out blue grass so, they kind of already knew him anyway. So, they were supposed to get to do that this past Sunday, but they already an event scheduled so, they didn’t get to do that. They just played with Willie Nelson on Friday. Coming up with Charlie Daniels and Loretta Lynn. And then, really exciting thing for me, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sandra McMahan 7 Malcom Mitchell who just signed to play with the New England Patriots? Well, his background was very lacking in literacy. Very poor, hard life, and so, by the time he got to college, which was on a football scholarship, he could only read and comprehend on a junior high level. So, he ran into a lady about my age, joined her book club, and learned comprehension and reading through her book club. So, from that he started a foundation, a literacy foundation, wrote a book, a children’s book, and now travels and speaks to kids in schools about the importance of learning to read, and gives every student in first grade a book, whatever school he’s in. So, when I saw his story at a literacy workshop I was recently at, I just thought, “I’m going to email him and tell him how touching that was, and tell him that my family is also going to schools, been on America’s Got Talent.” Did all that. I heard back from him last week, and so, he would like to hook up and see what they could do together about promoting literacy in schools. So, in July, we’re going to meet with him and his manager, and actually attend one of his fundraisers and see what happens there. I don’t know. It’s kind of exciting. SW: That is exciting. SM: So, yea, it’s changed, totally… And even rethinking things too, like for Summer, gets a lot of - I don’t want to say harassing - but a lot of extra attention that we want to be careful of. Guess that’s a good way to put it. SW: Yea, she is really pretty. SM: Well, we’ve always trained our kids to be friendly and nice, but you’ve got to be so careful. KP: Is it on the internet that that’s happening, or just like people? SM: On the internet… And it used to be a long time ago that her brother would give her phone number out for fun, so he doesn’t do that anymore. But mostly on Facebook and things like that. She kept telling me about this one fellow that, an older man too, that kept messaging her on Facebook, and then when she wouldn’t respond would be really ugly. So, when I looked, it was like, messenger, you know, fifty a day. “No,” I said. “Delete that person.” You can’t. You just have to be really careful. SW: Yea. I bet. What was it like? Because I remember, weren’t you standing there when they came in? SM: Oh, my gosh. It was so exciting. I was standing there thinking, “I can’t focus on my kids singing right now, because this is Nick Cannon.” This is totally Nick Cannon right here. SW: He looks so tall on TV. Is he really that tall? SM: He was pretty tall, and he seemed to be pretty buff. Which was so interesting too, because unless you’re on kind of guarded right there with him, any of them, any of the judges, or him, otherwise you couldn’t be near them. Like, they had body guards, and you couldn’t walk up to Sandra McMahan 8 them or anything. Nick had a personal assistant that literally carried his jacket on a hanger behind him. And I’m thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding.” SW: Well, he’s got the money for it. SM: Yea. Unbelievable. SW: Was it like so big? Like the stage, looking at it? SM: Yes. SW: It’s a huge area. SM: It was massive. SW: I bet your kids were overwhelmed. SM: They were. They were. But they said, they’ve always said that . . . Huge like that, it’s not as, you don’t get as nervous as just a few people. Because Summer said you just kind of see heads, you don’t really tune in to the face. Yea, and so, because there’s some places that they’ve been that you know, not everybody in the audience is going to like that kind of music. Do you know what I’m saying? And so, she said, “If you see expressions that seem negative, and you just kind of want to crawl in a shell.” But she said, “In big places, you just see mainly, lights and like a shadow and the top of a head, and you don’t really see faces.” So, it makes it so much easier. And I’m thinking, I’d be standing up there thinking, “There’s all these people here. I can’t do anything.” But… SW: I mean, everybody loved, even the people like, when they were in New York, or where were they? They were somewhere big, and everybody still loved them. They were… I don’t think they realized it was blue grass that they were playing. SM: No, no because I think too, I know I’ve been talking… They’ve added a drummer and keyboard since the show. And so, I know the manager and I, we talk a lot in this summer I’m going to work with him quite a bit on some of the side stuff. But, it’s a kind of a different genre, and it’s not. It’s not just blue grass. KP: It’s the sound of blue grass, but it’s different. SM: Did you see on Facebook where they did the music video up at our station? SW: Oh, yea. I saw that. SM: It was a dance. KP: It was a dance. I know a girl that did that. Sandra McMahan 9 SM: Well, I’ll play that song for you guys if you have time in a minute, but totally, like the instruments don’t even sound like blue grass instruments, at all. Somebody said, “Did they not play the banjo on this song?” And I said, “That was the banjo. The entire song. But it doesn’t sound…” I think it’s just amazing how they can take the instruments and make them sound, you know, so close to a different genre of music. We’re hoping that that’s what happens, that it’s kind of a new genre that comes out of it. That’s what they’re looking for. SW: That would be really cool. I mean, you go up on Wikipedia and type it in and there’s your guys’ names. SM: Yea, I know. I started it. KP: I couldn’t imagine that happening. Like, that is so cool. Like, have you guys like, I’m sure you get like, this is a weird question, but you have like, money. So, have you bought new, like are you still in the same house and stuff? SM: Oh, gosh, yes. We’re still in the same house. Yea, there’s been, they’re getting a lot more money than they’ve ever got for shows that they’re doing, but then, since they’ve added keyboard, sound person, a drummer… SW: And they’re traveling a lot. SM: And they’re traveling a lot. The expenses seem to just all so, it’s not like they’re making what Carrie Underwood’s making. That’d be nice. But it’s better. So, we’re hoping that is goes even further that way. It takes a long time. They’ve been playing for sixteen years. KP: You guys, at that shop, have the best sausage biscuits. I went there this summer with my driving guy, he took me there, he’s like, “These guys have the best sausage biscuits.” SM: Oh, that’s so funny. Mark Cooper? KP: Yep. Mark Cooper. Yep. SM: I’ve known him a long time. That’s funny. SW: Yea, my grandma, she lives in Franklin, but when she comes to Sylva, she always goes to your guys all the time. SM: Does she stop there? Well, they pump the gas. SW: Exactly. She goes, “Those boys out there, they’re so nice.” SM: I don’t think I would know how to pump gas. SW: Because those machine, they’re vintage. They just flip it on and pump it. Sandra McMahan 10 SM: Yep. There’s no push-button. [cross-conversation] SW: What do you guys do when you guys are traveling? Who runs it? SM: Well see, Sam’s brother is part owner so, he’s there to help out. It takes some good planning though, to keep it going. SW: And you guys went overseas. SM: Now, they do still have people, because I ask my husband occasionally, “Has anybody stopped in, you know, looking for Mountain Faith?” So, they still have people coming from all over that will say, “So, this is real. So, there is a High Country in Sylva, and you do work here.” So, they still get that, and want to take pictures. So, that’s kind of funny. Well, I guess you think reality TV, a lot of it. And a lot of it wasn’t. A lot of it was staged. Like, picking the songs. They picked the songs. America’s Got Talent picked the songs. SW: What? KP: I thought that they got to pick their own songs? SM: They got to make suggestions, and then they had a team that would say, “This is the one I want you to play out of the suggestions.” KP: So, when people say that’s not exactly the story… SM: Yea, like, didn’t they get removed because the judges, or like, America didn’t like the songs or something? KP: Yea, that’s what I thought? Like in the last round? SM: Oh, in that last round? Honestly, I feel like, after just having been there that, I don’t know, possibly they know who’s going to win. You kind of feel that way. You kind of feel that way. I don’t know. I don’t know. SW: Because when you said that they picked the songs, I was like… SM: Well, it’s really funny because the second song they played, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.” The video that they sent to Summer was of this very country looking group, like, with overalls, and laid back. It was very slow. Very, very slow. They sped it up. Mountain Faith did. So, after they did it, after they taped the show, Summer comes in my room one night, she goes, “Mom, do not pull up the video.” Of course, I did. Of the real group, from that song. I mean it’s horrible. Oh, gosh. People are going to be so upset with us. And I pulled it up, and it was by a group called The Darkness. A British group. Sandra McMahan 11 SW: Country British Group. SM: Well no, they weren’t. Somebody had redone the song, but the original version came from this group called The Darkness. And so, this other group had redone, and so that’s the video we saw. Well, when we looked up the original, it was vulgar, I mean it was just horrible. And we were thinking, “Oh no. This is terrible.” My husband was so upset because it just depicted, just ugly. But then, I’m watching it and I kind of laughed, and he said, “What are you laughing at?” And I said, “The lyrics are so beautiful, but the actions in this video do not match the lyrics at all. I mean, it’s not… It’s a pretty song, I mean.” And so, we had no idea how they would portray our family at all. We signed papers that said “Do whatever to us.” We were so excited about being on the show, it’s like, “Yea, make it out to be whatever story you want.” And so, we didn’t know if they were going to portray us as mountain hillbillies, you know, that kind of thing? You know, we didn’t know. And so, we were very pleased with how they portrayed our family. And we didn’t know that until we saw it on TV. How they were going to put it together. KP: It was awesome. SW: You guys looked perfect. SM: Ah, that’s so sweet. SW: Yea, your house and you looked great. SM: Oh gosh, wait until you see it Monday. Because we’ve moved a mountain since then, and we haven’t been there to finish the project that we have going on. But no, we didn’t know what they would…how they would… KP: I didn’t know that. I thought you got to pick. SM: No, no, they didn’t… No, we just had no idea. SW: Did you guys pick your outfits, or did they control everything? SM: They didn’t pick outfits until the last two episodes, and then they paid for their outfits and dressed them. No, we did like at home, we just did whatever. But they interviewed for a long time. Over an hour with me, and what’d you get, fifteen seconds? No, so, I didn’t know. “Did I say something that maybe I shouldn’t have?” You know, I didn’t know what they were going to put out there about us. But we didn’t know until we saw it at the viewing party over in Franklin, the night that it aired, how it was all going to come together, on any of the episodes. Because they don’t let you see that. KP: You know the video that like it shows, like the background story, did you have to, did they make that? Did they like, did you guys make the video where it’s like, shows Sylva, shows… Sandra McMahan 12 SM: No, they did that. They came to Sylva, and they did all that. Yep. They spent an entire day with us. They did all that in one day. But they came to Sylva, and they did all the video stuff. So, it was pretty cool. SW: Did you guys make any friends with other contestants in it? SM: Oh, yea. Yea. The one that we liked the most was the Regurgitator. He was the nicest. He was so nice. He was there with no family. SW: Really? He did seem nice. When my grandma, she would sit there and watch it with me, and she was like, “I got to leave. This is nasty.” SM: I know, a lot of people had to. But he was so, so friendly. He even has made contact since the show, and stayed in touch. Benton Blunt, he’s from Valdese, NC, so, we got to be pretty good friends with him, and he stays in touch. Ira, the puppets? It was two men, and they were just so sweet. One lived in New York, and one lived in California, and they were just really good friends, and so they teamed up and did that. And so, they still stay in touch. But yea, they got to know everybody. And the guy that won was really, really nice too. KP: Have those people become famous, or is it just… SM: The ventriloquist, oh yea. He’s yea. He’s doing quite well. He’s doing very good. SW: He was the one that won, Right? SM: Yea, he won. And so, I had heard that a ventriloquist that had won on that show before, makes a hundred million dollars a year… SW: Yea, Terry Fader, I think that’s what his name it. But he was good too. SM: A hundred million dollars. I can’t even imagine? SW: Have you guys gotten any like, recording companies contact you since then? SM: There was. Big Machine’s contacted, but the manager that we have, he’s very familiar with... In fact, he retired from his own music company. So, he’s been very watchful for us in the way of… A lot of artists like that, recording companies will take them and put them on the shelf, and so, they don’t really push. So, we haven’t done anything with that yet, but APA Agency, they did sign with them. And so, they represent people like, Billy Ray Cyrus is on there, Dolly Parton is on that label, Charlie Daniels is on that label. Gosh, there’s a bunch of other artists that are new that I don’t… Craig Morgan, he’s on there. I can’t remember. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with a lot of the newer artists. But they did sign with them. SW: That’s cool. So, it’s definitely come up from starting the show. SM: Oh, yea. Yea. Sandra McMahan 13 SW: Okay. Is there any memories that stand out from high school? Any teachers or peers that made your day, or that you just remember? SM: Oh gosh, yea. Dianne Yount. And her husband is, the baseball field here is named after her husband. Ron Yount Field. But she was very influential on my dream of being a teacher, I guess. And Carolyn Wike. Those two people really stand out. They just really cared. And you weren’t just their student. They cared about you, they nurtured you, encouraged you. But Dianne Yount, the one thing that stands out about her, she had us all write a letter. In ninth grade. We had to write a letter to ourselves, that she was going to mail, I think in ten years, about what we thought we’d be doing at that time. What we were doing now, what we thought we’d be doing then, and blah, blah, blah. How we thought life would change, the world would change, all this kind of stuff. I thought, “Yea right, she’s not going to mail that.” Ten years later, I got it in the mail. So, I thought, “Wow.” I mean that was really impressive that she would do that. I was a very good girl in high school. I didn’t do all that bad stuff. So, I don’t have any crazy memories. SW: Yea, you were pretty far out there living. SM: Oh yea. No parties up there. SW: So, after that fifteen years after high school, where did you go to college? SM: Western. I started out at Southwestern. I did my associates degree. I got my bachelors at Western, and I’m currently doing my grad at Western. I mean it’s right here. It’s easy. SW: Did you know you were going back into the school system a few years before you decided to go to college, or was it just like a spark one day? SM: I mean, it’s what I wanted to do, but at the same time it was kind of like, “Now’s a good time.” So, I wasn’t really planning for the time that I went. Anita called. She was a huge encouragement to me. And so, she called and I said, “I’m thinking about going back to school. What do you think?” “Well, if you’re going, I’m going.” And so, we went together. SW: Oh, cool. So, I know you’re at Blue Ridge right now, where else have you taught? SM: Here. Here at Cullowhee. I started here. I started here as a tutor. Roll that back. I started as a substitute in this classroom working with special needs kids. And so, from there, I subbed in different classrooms. And then, a tutor position came open so, I applied and got the tutor position job. So, I did that for a few years. And then, I was a classroom assistant, and all of the teachers here encouraged me, “You got to go back and get your degree. You got to go back.” And that was very helpful too. So, that’s how that all happened. SW: And how long have you been teaching? SM: I have only taught for five years. And this year, I was lead teacher at Blue Ridge. So, I didn’t actually have my own classroom. I just help teachers with resourcing, lesson planning, Sandra McMahan 14 help beginning teachers, worked with testing, that sort of thing. So, I didn’t actually have students this year. SW: That’s cool. What inspired you and your daughter to open Artificially Yours? SM: When my mother passed away, we did all real flowers for her, which I’ve always loved to do flowers anyway. I’ve always done it for myself, you know. I’ve done some weddings for friends just to help out. But when my mother passed away, and we got all real flowers for her grave and for the funeral, and about three days later went back to the grave to visit, and they were all dead. It just wasn’t pretty anymore, and so we had to clean it up. And I thought, “Well, I’ve always wanted to do flowers.” In fact, I had thought maybe I would just open a little floral shop, but then another lady in town opened one. And I didn’t want to, I mean, you know, you just don’t want to… SW: Make competition. SM: Yea, I mean… Not that I feared her competition, it was just I didn’t want to interfere with her. You know, because I figure I would only be doing this part-time, and she’s probably trying to make a real go of it, and I don’t want to… This is something that I just kind of want to do on the side. And so, I just decided to do them out of my home. That’s what started it. So, Summer doesn’t help out as much as she did when we first started this, but… I’m kind of on my own with that, and I don’t advertise a whole lot. It’s just kind of word-of-mouth. So, I have some regular customers that want the same thing every year for cemetery things. And I usually average doing anywhere from two to four weddings in a summer. And it’s kind of a stress reliever. I enjoy… I just love flowers. SW: Do you guys have a shop, or is it just from home? SM: It’s from my house. I have a little room on the side that I store the flowers in, and then I just bring it out in the living room or wherever and work on it. KP: Do you make them, or how do you get the fake… SM: No, there’s a place in Georgia where all the florists here in Western North Carolina get their flowers. Georgia, Tennessee, I’ve seen people from all over. There’s a huge warehouse in Georgia. So, I just go down there and get my flowers. SW: So, since you have an artificial flower shop, do you guys have a bee problem? SM: No. No bees. SW: Ms. McRae’s colleague added that for me. SM: Ah. Cute. Sandra McMahan 15 SW: He’s a nut. Is there anything you would like to add before we finish? SM: No. I’m very humbled at, especially you guys telling me that you got extra credit for voting. That’s very humbling. SW: Everybody in school watched it. Everybody was rooting for you guys. SM: Ah, that is so sweet. So, see, they need to come to your school. SW: They do. That’s the only thing that people talked about for a solid two months. END OF INTERVIEW
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