The Sedalia Center

by Thom McCabe

The Sedalia Center was born out of tragedy. Mom, Annis McCabe, always wanted a creative arts center because she was a quintessential art teacher, and a very spiritual person. After we moved to Curtis from Forest, she came across the abandoned Counter Ridge School, one of the equalization schools built in the late ‘50s. Shortly after, the place came up for a sealed bid, 1988 I think, and I guess she talked my dad into submitting a bid. He forgot about it till he was in the barn one day and my brother-in-law, who was visiting with him, looked up from the paper and said, hey Doc, do you know you got that bid? That’s how Doc found out he had bought a new piece of real estate. Annis’ artist friends and Dad’s farmer and builder buddies set to work clearing debris. Buzzy Coleman’s company did the construction here. All the windows were replaced. They were all wood framed windows, had baseballs thrown through them, and you know, it was a mess.
            My dad loved practicing medicine, but he loved horses and Bluegrass just as much. So, music has always been major. Mama was a choir director back in the days at the Methodist Church in Forest. We were all in choir. My brother played the organ and the piano. Music started happening at Sedalia, and farm events, and all sorts of arts events and studio work.
           It was quite a time, but then my brother Stuart died, and that loss really nailed it, you know, kind of pulled everything together, and out of that disaster came this space. Shortly before he died, he had flipped a note onto my mother’s desk — “No one is bored when they are learning something new or creating something beautiful.” They dedicated the building to his memory. Around the same time, Sheriff Michael Brown's son was killed in a car accident - the Walk of Poems containing Matthew Jordan Brown’s original poems is a place where children play and people seek the shade, but it’s also a place for remembrance and connection. Also in those early years, Marshall Cofer’s daughter Sherry was killed in an accident. The horse arena is dedicated to her. These tragedies underlay this place, and the school’s history and the coalescence of these events brought these people even closer together.                       Somehow at its core, Sedalia is a place of healing. My dad's love and passion for bluegrass led to one of the most successful festivals, a three-day event that really skyrocketed when it hit the Internet. I had friends call me from all over when they found out about the place.  It’s a family place. There are people that grew up here and now they bring their children.
           My mother used to have a bumper sticker - ”If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.“ That's where she was coming from. Being an art educator meant more than just teaching the craft. For Annis, the work, the process, of making art was always an intellectual puzzle and a confrontation with her own potential and limits. She mapped out what she called the creative process as flowers that bloom from the dark compost of the psyche, our personal truths and insights that we want to express. The satisfaction is in the process that it takes to get done whatever you're doing creatively. I think she recognized that as the art of negotiating through life, and that's how the words, “for the Art of Living and Living Arts,” came about. She left no stone unturned in her search for truth.
​           As a board member, I'm a real stickler on recruitment because I'm 66 years old. I'm proud to be part of the crew that does all the mowing here. It takes four of us two and a half hours to knock it out. But we're not getting any younger, and there's going to have to be a cohort of younger people to take on the duties needed to keep the place up. I feel now that Sedalia is a gathering place, cast in love and care and compassion. We are always trying to think ahead about how this beautiful place can be a source of refreshment and relaxation for the people of the area.

Thom McCabe was born in Roanoke. His family lived in Thaxton, then in Arlington, where his father, Dr. William O. McCabe, Jr. represented the medical corps in the Old Guard. They moved to Forest, where Dr. McCabe set up his practice, and then to Curtis. Thom graduated from Lynchburg College and lived in Nashville and Knoxville until moving to New York’s Hudson Valley in the early 90s. A cabinet maker, restoration carpenter, and lifelong musician, he and his tools and instruments are now happily ensconced in Bedford County in a house his own hands built.
​