HUDSON, Ohio — The 13th annual Ohio Barn Conference will be held April 27-28 in Hudson, Ohio, and will include a one-day barn tour in the Summit County region of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The conference is sponsored by the Friends of Ohio Barns is working in collaboration with the National Barn Alliance.
Attendees to the conference and tour will learn about the New England settlers who migrated into the Connecticut Western Reserve and established the farmsteads and communities in northeastern Ohio.
Barn tour
On Friday, April 27, the event will be touring some of the barns in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy Program, and will be learning about the program from the founder and executive director, Darwin Kelsey.
The program started in 1999 as a way to rehabilitate old farms and put them back to work under the guidance of the conservancy.
A panel of farmers from the program, including Alan Halko, Daniel Greenfield and David Wingenfeld, will be on hand to talk about their experiences.
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Conference sessions
National Barn Alliance President Charles Leik will be speaking on the subject of the future of America’s barns and will be available to discuss the National Barn Alliance programs. .
Ohio Barn Conference keynote speaker will be Scott Carlson, timber framer, woodworker, and craftsman.
Carlson graduated from the University of Montana as a forester, which has helped him to find just the right trees to craft his cruck frames.
History buffs will thoroughly enjoy David Snider from Somerset, Ohio, and his presentation Agricultural Juggernaut: The Jeffersonian Agrarian Vision meets the Best Damned Farm Ground on God’s Footstool.
He is a graduate of Hocking College and Ohio University and works as a modern agricultural structure designer/builder. He is a past president and trustee of the Perry County Historical Society.
The Barn Detectives, Rudy Christian and Larry Sulzer, will be available on Friday’s tour to point out unusual joinery and try to uncover and interpret special details found in these barns. They will present their findings at the conference on Saturday.
If you go.
The conference will include lunch, Barn of the Year Award presentations, a daylong silent auction, as well as other exhibits, demonstrations and vendor presentations.
The conference will be held at the Clarion Inn, Hudson. The deadline for early bird registration is March 31. Reduced rates are $110 for members of the Friends of Ohio Barns, and $135 for nonmembers. Spouses can register for a reduced fee. After March 31, registration for members of the Friends of Ohio Barns is $130 or $80 for Saturday only. Registration for nonmembers is $150 and $90.
The full conference fee includes Friday’s chartered bus tour, morning refreshments, catered lunch; Saturday conference presentations/materials, continental breakfast and buffet lunch.
For more information or to register for the conference and barn tour go online to www.friendsofohiobarns.org or contact Sarah Woodall at 330-856-9053 or 330-550-6982.
