When a Blue Mound Christian church was in need of a band, a handful of women stepped up to the plate.
Nine women now play in the Christian Strings band. Thursday they were at the Iola Public Library performing a variety of folk music from “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” to the all-American favorite “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
Most of the women, with the exception of two, were self-taught. Most of the women play dulcimers with the exception of a guitarist, autoharp and accordion.
“We are all self-taught, so if we are playing it wrong then we wouldn’t know,” member Regina Broyles said humorously.
Three of the women took a couple of trips to Kansas City to take classes from famous dulcimer musician Larry Conger. During the performance the women played one of Conger’s original songs “September on the Mississippi.”
The dulcimers have three strings, and instead of notes on their music sheets there are numbers.
“You’ve heard of paint by numbers right? Well, we play by numbers,” Boryles told the audience.
The women travel around southeast Kansas performing. They all live in the Blue Mound community.
