Join us Thursday evening, December 8, for our Christmas Bookfest – book signings at The Sparta Store.
Authors Kate Clay Bodeen(NCSH Award Winner Pat Crisp, Like a Moth to the Flame) and Dr. Suzanne Mellow Irwin(The Stratford Oaks Tales), as well as illustrator Zach Hamm(The Stratford Oaks Tales) will be here from 3:00 till 6:00 that afternoon. A representative from High Country Hospice will also have copies of their award-winning cookbook, Meals and Memories, available.
In addition to having your book signed, you’ll have a chance to learn about their upcoming projects.
Also, you’ll be able to check out the latest release from Star Route Books, Regimental History of the 61st NC Infantry. This is the second in our popular history book series and others are planned for release next year.
Our neighboring shops on Main Street will also have extended hours December 8. Be sure to stop by Backwoods Bean, Murphy’s Mercantile, and Studio Redwood that evening and support our local merchants and businesses.
Imaging Specialists has won a prestigious Garland P. Stout Publishers Award for excellence in the field of publishing from the North Carolina Society of Historians. This is the second Publishing Award for ISI. We received the first one in 2009 for our work in Alleghany County’s Sesquicentennial.
Regimental History of the 26th North Carolina. Cover Painting of Picketts charge by Edwin Forbes at US Library of Congress.
The Society also honored us with a Willie Parker Peace History Book Awardfor the book, Regimental History of the 26th NC Infantry, that we produced this summer, about Ashe County men in the Civil War. We gathered the text, photos, battle maps and battle summaries for the book; laid out and re-set the text; and optimized the photos for the book which is now available on-demand from Star Route Books and in our shop in Sparta.
We were also fortunate to receive a Robert Bruce Cooke Family History Book Award for our own, Family Photos – Eli Hamilton Halsey and Lillian Blanche Smith. This book is a photographic record of our own family, developed with the help of my Dad, Ronald Halsey’s, archive of negatives and our family’s photos. We scanned all images and assembled them into a chronological record of the lives of my Great-Grandparents and their family. The casebound book is printed in color and includes images from old prints, tintypes, 4×5 negatives, 35 mm and digital photography.
It is true that this “labor-of-love” will never have mass-appeal, but it was a real learning experience for us in the field of on-demand, self-publishing and we couldn’t be more proud of the result.
We also share in an award the Society presented to the Alleghany Historical – Genealogical Society. For the third year, AHGS has won a Joe M. McLaurin Newsletter Award, for the quarterly newsletter that we produce. The newsletter regularly includes text and historic photography from the county and this year, we’ve started adding our own photos of the Alleghany Historical Museum’s loans and acquisitions.
We are also pleased to have helped Lorene Sturgill, who received a Robert Bruce Cooke Family History Book Award for Descendants of William Black and Nancy Allison (We helped with photographic scanning, typesetting, page layout, design and production). This 296-page, casebound book containing genealogical records, photographs and stories is arguably our largest book project yet.
Of course, ISI has generated film for thousands of titles over the years, including many family histories and multi-volume sets, but this is the largest in which we’ve handled all aspects of the prepress work from design to production. The book is also available, on-demand from Star Route Books and the Sparta Store.
Congratulations Lorene, Kay, and Thelma for the recognition of your work and thanks for letting us be a part of your projects.
Lastly, we are happy to have played a part in the joint project of the Alleghany Historical – Genealogical Society and the Sparta Revitalization Committee‘s downtown Sparta walking tour, The Story of Sparta.
Window Decals designed and printed by ISI for the Sparta Revitalization Committee
We originally designed the SRC’s logo and were able to incorporate it into the vinyl, window decals for the self-guided tour. We are also pleased to have provided the cover photography for the Hospice’s Meals and Memories cookbook. Both projects won Paul Green Multimedia awards.
The first of Lorene Sturgill's Black Family history books
We’ve received the first batch of the Descendants of William Black and Nancy Allison family history books, and we couldn’t be prouder. For information on the book, we invite you to visit Star Route Books. Or order your own copy here.
From Changes Wrought by Time by Dr. O. R. Black included in The Descendants of William Black and Nancy Allison:
“The last time I was here the cemetery looked like a beautiful flower garden, made possible by many who have loved ones resting in this Silent City of the Dead. I was glad to note that no grave was slighted. This was as it should be – flowers for all.
Mount Zion United Methodist Church in Piney Creek, North Carolina. (Photo by Jeff Halsey)
“I read names on many markers that were not here forty years ago when I left. Names of many of my associates, school mates, friends and relatives were noted – so many changes wrought by time.
“As I look back over the dim vista of years, when neighbors, relatives and friends gathered at the old church for Sunday School and Church service, many walking several miles, there was then that feeling of love and friendship displayed that has never been forgotten. I can almost imagine that I recognize now several voices in the choir singing “Nearer My God to Thee” and “How Firm A Foundation Ye Saints of the Lord.” As I visualize my boyhood days at church I see the congregation on bended knees, and hear the earnest prayers and supplications offered by many of the faithful in the church. I cherish many sacred memories of my boyhood days in Sunday School and Church work at Mt. Zion Church.”
Mt. Zion Church Cemetery. (Photo by Jeff Halsey)
From the Acknowledgements Page:
“On July 1, 1961 many of the descendants of William Black, who came to America from Glasgow, Scotland around 1817, gathered at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Alleghany County, North Carolina for the purpose of establishing an organization of the Black family.
“Although this idea had been considered by many of the group before this time, it was Dr. Oscar R. Black of Landis, N.C. who became keenly interested in effecting the organization and gave impetus to the idea.
“At the initial meeting each relative identified himself and his relationship to William Black. A special welcome was given to visiting cousins from Scotland and from South Africa. These were the Rev. James Hamilton, his wife, Olive Black Hamilton, and their daughter Allison, of Glasgow, Scotland, who came to Asheville, N.C. in the summer of 1961. The Rev. Hamilton came as an exchange minister to the Beaver Lake Presbyterian Church.
“Naomi Black, originally of Glasgow, but now residing in Durban, South Africa, is serving as a nutritionist in a government hospital there. She joined the Hamiltons during the summer. Olive and Naomi, sisters, are great-granddaughters of James Black, brother of William Black.
“The story told by Olive Hamilton of finding old letters in the attic of her father’s home in Paisley, Scotland from relatives in America written many years ago was of great interest to the group. Her interest in these letters resulted in correspondence with Hazel Black Linn, daughter of Dr. O. R. Black, and eventually led to a visit to America by Olive and her family…
“The committee wishes to acknowledge each contribution and to thank each person who has contributed in any way to the information compiled for this book. We are deeply indebted to the late Dr. Oscar R. Black who spent endless hours in research and compiled the first history of the Black family. Without this history it would have been impossible to present many of the facts given in this book.”
Thursday, June 2, from 3-6:00 pm, we’ll host book signings at The Sparta Store for two books we’ve helped with.
Dr. Suzanne Mellow Irwin and Zach Hamm, author and illustrator of the children’s book, The Stratford Oaks Tales, The Tale of Gretchen, and Kate Clay Bodeen, author of Pat Crisp, Like a Moth to the Flame, a historical book about her grandfather, will be here. Both books are currently available at The Sparta Store, online and in-store.
The Museum is hosting Business After Hours for the Chamber of Commerce, but the food and drinks will in our store. It will definitely be a collaborative effort.
Come out and see everyone!
If you really need a reason to come out on a Thursday night, you might want to…
Support our local authors.
Check out the Education in Alleghany Exhibit at the Museum.
Listen to David, Gary, and Ernest play.
Talk to Bob and Debbie and learn about the services the Chamber and Library offer our community.
We look forward to seeing you on June 2!
If you’ve got a book you need help with, or just a good idea, contact us today!
Star Route Books is the name of our new imprint, or the name for the line of books we generate. We will continue to concentrate on regional, historical and cultural subjects and feel this name fits our rural roots perfectly. Growing up, my family addressed mail to my grandparents, “Star Route, Sparta,” so to us, the name has a nice, down home quality.
According to the National Postal Museum website, “In 1845, postal officials tried a new approach to expand the nation’s mail service—Star Routes. The Post Office Department hired contractors for these new routes and allowed them to use any form of transportation they chose to carry the mail, from canoes to snowshoes. The mail has traveled along this network of Star Routes across America’s valleys, mountains, rivers, and highways ever since.”
Contractors were “to carry the mail with ‘celerity (speed), certainty, and security‘.”
I can’t think of a better way to describe our commitment to our customers. Imaging Specialists has delivered superior quality and service for over 20 years- from our beginnings as a trade shop for the printing industry, to the full service graphics we offer today.
If you need help with your novel, cookbook, family album- or whatever project you have in mind, we can help you get from an idea to a finished product. Contact us today!
