Sheep-shearing event will be held Friday at Museum of Appalachia
Karen Foust of Medford spins wool into thread during the sheep-shearing event in May 2024 at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris. The annual event returns this Friday and next Friday. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Visitors may watch sheep getting their spring shearing, and there will be plenty of other pioneer-type activities provided to keep students and families entertained during the event, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day.
There will be more than two-dozen sheep getting their trims, and the museum is expecting to host crowds that will include school groups from all over East Tennessee, as well as some from Kentucky and Virginia.
The Museum of Appalachia has been holding the event for more than 10 years, said Will Meyer, the facility’s marketing director and the grandson of its founder, the late John Rice Irwin.
“We have a few events that are big boosters for us and help us show some of the Appalachian traditions,” he said.
Tickets are $20 for adults (18 and up); $18 for people 65 or older, military or first-responders; and $10 for ages 6-17. A family pass is $50, which includes two adults and up to six children. Kids under 6 are free with a parent. Museum members are also admitted free.
Admission also includes tours of the museum farm and village, which contain some three-dozen historic log structures, exhibit halls filled with thousands of Appalachian artifacts, working gardens, and farm animals, according to the museum website.
There will be spinners and weavers on hand so visitors can see how wool is made into finished products, Meyer said.
Also available will be live music the entire time, sheep-herding demonstrations, interactive children’s programs, animal meet-and-greets, historic demonstrations, and food vendors.
Animals to see and greet will include mini-donkeys, mini-horses and goats, and, of course, the museum’s ever-present peacocks.
Because the museum doesn’t have a huge population of its own sheep, there will be some brought in for the event, Meyer said. “We have some here, but not that many.
“This is something the sheep actually welcome,” he said. “It does not hurt them, and it cools them off for the summer.”
“It’s an excuse for us to welcome tons of school kids, and bring artisans and craftspeople to the museum to demonstrate their work,” Meyer said.
Tickets are available through a link on the Museum of Appalachia Facebook page or at museumofappalachia.org. For more information or to book a group, call the museum at 865-494-7680.
