SEPTEMBER 2, 2010 ISSUE
High Country Praise Festival Sunday
Kirk Cameron To Speak; Live Music by The Afters, Fireflight, 7 Miles and More
The ninth annual High Country Praise Festival will take place this Sunday, September 5, at the Holmes Center on the ASU campus. Kirk Cameron, ASU football Coach Jerry Moore and Blake Elder, ASU wide receiver, will speak at the event, and Christian groups The Afters, Fireflight, 7 Miles and Offered Soul will perform. Photos courtesy of Son’s Light MinistriesTwo thousand to 3,000 people are expected to attend the ninth annual High Country Praise Festival, which will take place this Sunday, September 5, at the Holmes Center on ASU’s campus from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Doors open at 3:30 p.m., and admission is $5.
The event is open to the public and will feature live music by The Afters, Fireflight and 7 Miles, as well as by Offered Soul, the 2009 “Stars in His Crown” local Christian talent search winner.
“We have a lot of people coming back year after year with youth groups of 30 or 40 because they can afford it,” said David Ward, director of Son’s Light Ministries, a local nonprofit that organizes the annual festival.
In addition to attendees from North Carolina, “we get people from Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee; we advertise in a 100-mile radius,” Ward said. “We’ve been ranging between 2,000 to 3,000 people at the event.”
This year’s featured speaker will be Kirk Cameron, an actor who rose to stardom with his role as Mike Seaver in the award-winning TV series “Growing Pains,” which aired from 1985 to 1992.
ASU head football Coach Jerry Moore and Blake Elder, ASU wide receiver, will also speak at the event.
Cameron more recently starred in the Left Behind movies based on the New York Times best-selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins and in Fireproof, a 2008 film that many churches are showing, Ward said.
Although he has been in Boone before, this event will mark Cameron’s first time traveling to Boone to speak, he said.
“We’re blessed to have him here,” he said, adding that the speaking engagement has been “a couple years” in the making.
“He’s been very well-received,” Ward said, explaining that Cameron has spoken in nearby cities such as Charlotte. “He doesn’t do a whole lot of speaking, but when he does, he’s well-received.”
Many people are also familiar with Cameron’s discipleship program, Ward added.
“The Way of the Master,” a spirituality-based reality TV show Cameron co-hosts with Ray Comfort, is broadcast on 20 different networks in several different languages, according to Cameron’s website.
To learn more about Cameron or his ministry, click to www.kirkcameron.com.
Music by The Afters can be heard in the movie Just My Luck, which stars Lindsay Lohan, and the group also has a song in the movie Shrek, Ward said.
Additionally, the band’s song “MySpace Girl” has aired on MTV. The Afters’ new single release “Light Up The Sky” is getting a lot of airtime on the radio right now, Ward added.
The High Country Praise Festival also includes an outdoor concert by solo artist Michael Kuehn, a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., and the co-winner along with the Marshall Daniels Band of the 2010 “Stars in His Crown” Christian Talent Search, run by Son’s Light Ministries.
The public can attend the outdoor concert, which will start between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m., and enjoy the inflatables set up outside for free, Ward said.
The High Country Praise Festival is one of Son’s Light Ministries’ annual projects; the organization also facilitates a campus ministry at ASU and a coffee house ministry located on Boone Heights Drive, Ward said.
“We could absolutely not do it without the people in this town,” Ward said of the festival, stating that it is “a reflection of the awesome place we live in” that the event exists.
He thanked the many local businesses, individuals and churches that make the event possible.
For more information about the event, click to www.sonslightministries.com or call 828-264-2007. To purchase tickets, click to www.theholmescenter.com or call 828-262-6603.
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