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TRYON—The Tryon History Museum’s Tales of Tryon series continues Thursday, June 13, with the ever-popular Dr. Warren Carson presenting “Personalities of the Eastside and Environs,” at Roseland Community Center.  

The presentation will focus on educators, entrepreneurs, and everyday people who built and sustained a vibrant community—one that has been integral to Tryon’s history.

Community—people bound together by common interests and values to achieve a common purpose—is a concept not to be taken for granted in today’s fast-changing world. As such, it deserves serious thought and attention. No one is better qualified to provide this—and do so in an entertaining fashion—than Carson, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina Upstate. A product and lifelong resident of a closely-knit community, Tryon’s Eastside, he has devoted his life to community development and betterment as an educator, civic leader, and public servant.

In his talk, Carson will tell how entrepreneurs such as James F. Bryan, whose general store on Markham Road was a community hub and gathering place for decades, provided a role model for individual initiative and self-reliance while furnishing basic community needs without the necessity of travel to obtain them.

He will also highlight the community service and involvement of educators like Helen Harris Hannon and Esther Wilkins Robinson, whose molding and shaping of generations of school children built character and leadership skills that, in turn, built a better and stronger community.  Not to be overlooked are the contributions of “ordinary” citizens who often displayed extraordinary gifts that made the Eastside—and Tryon as a whole—the unique places that they are.

All are invited to join in a learning experience that will bring community history to life while displaying the teaching and speaking skills that made Warren Carson one of University Upstate’s most popular professors for well over 30 years. Carson has been quoted as saying that “a lot of teaching is performance,” and anyone who hasn’t seen this philosophy in action needs to.

Tales of Tryon is made possible through the generosity of the Polk County Community Foundation. Next Thursday’s program will begin at 5 p.m., and Roseland’s doors will open at 4 p.m.  Roseland Community Center is located at 56 Peake Street in Tryon.