JEFFERSON - It was 10 years ago this summer that President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore visited the banks of the New River in Ashe County to designate the river as an American Heritage River.
"The New River tells stories of a region, the southern Appalachians, where close-knit communities remain true to tradition, where neighbors share a vision of wise stewardship to the land and the waters," Clinton said in his speech. "It tells stories of our emerging nation, of Col. Peter Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's father, who surveyed this river and Daniel Boone, who trapped here for beaver and bear."
It's that heritage and the people who lived there and continue to live there that is the focus of a celebration Saturday of the 10th anniversary of the American Heritage River designation and the local agency's own 10-year anniversary.
In the fall after the president's visit, community leaders in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia formed the New River Community Partners, a nonprofit organization that tries to help the economies along the river while also preserving local culture.
American Heritage River Day will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the new visitors center at the New River State Park's access area off U.S. 221. Traditional music starts at 11 a.m. with well-known guitar-maker and player Wayne Henderson and Helen White on the main stage and others in the afternoon. There will be arts and crafts displays, heritage demonstrations, ecology talks by rangers and local history talks by faculty members from Appalachian State University.
Admission is free.
Other celebrations are planned June 14 in Radford, Va., and June 21 in Hinton, W.Va.
People in Ashe County still talk about the time that the president visited the river.
Ken McFadyen, the executive director of the New River Community Partners, was a graduate student at ASU when he attended the ceremony on July 30, 1998.
It was the 1970s fight to stop two proposed dams on the New River that really got people to pay attention to the river that had nourished life but sometimes been taken for granted, McFadyen said.
"When we talk about development, even far away from the river -- miles and miles away -- it has an impact in terms of runoff and sediment," he said. "A river can help a community understand we're all in this together. The health of the river is a good indicator of our community."
The National Heritage River designation brings federal money for locally driven initiatives. Though other groups stress environmental concerns and concentrate on the river itself, the mission of the New River Community Partners is to serve the people and communities in the river's watershed in 21 counties in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
That's an area of about 7,000 square miles and an estimated 600,000 people.
During its 10 years, the New River Community Partners has helped with renovations to the 1904 Ashe County courthouse, worked on stream-bank-restoration projects, organized the Blue Ridge Business Development Center in Sparta, and helped in many other projects.
The river's North and South forks start in Watauga County, then join in Ashe County. It flows northward into Virginia, then loops back into North Carolina before heading back north. The New River is 337 miles long, and joins the Kanawha, Ohio and Mississippi rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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