In honor of Amyotrophic Lateral Schlerosis (ALS) Awareness Month, Team Wandell presents Fiddlin’ for a Cure, an evening of bluegrass and to community support for the family of retired East Side Principal Dr. Josh Wandell.

The nationally acclaimed Fiddlin’ Carson Peters Band out of Piney Flats, Tennessee will lead the entertainment for the evening with originals as well as some of the classics, like Carson’s famed rendition of “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

Hunter and Sally Berry with Haley Stiltner will open the show, an Elizabethton bluegrass and gospel group with experience teaching music as part of East Tennessee State University’s Bluegrass and Old-Time and Country Music Studies program.

The concert will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 20 at Elizabethton High School. Tickets are available for $10 at the door.

Carson has performed at the Grand Ole Opry, Bristol Rhythm and Roots, WDVX’s World Class Bluegrass concert series, NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Dollywood’s Bluegrass and BBQ, among many other festivals and venues.

Like Wandell, Carson gives all the glory of his success to God.

After Wandell’s diagnosis with ALS in 2013, he continued to work, to love his students and to be active in his community. As the disease progressed, taking some of his physical abilities away from him, he has continued to promote “faith over fear,” saying even if God has moved up his finish line, he trusts God is using him for a greater plan.

When asked how he feels about the events the community continues to organize to support him and his family, he reiterated a statement by a friend who organized the recent race, Wheels for Wandell, which helped raise the remaining funding needed to get Wandell a racing chair.

Paraphrasing Netta Vogt, he said “There are so many negative posts recently filled with hate and ugliness that I was starting to wonder about people. I was beginning to think that kindness and compassion for others was a rare commodity. But last night (at Wheels for Wandell), my faith in people was completely restored. The amount of caring, compassion and love was apparent to me and everyone else in Elizabethton. I was overwhelmed with the amount of support.”

Wandell said he believes faith prevailed over fear at that event because the community continues to make it happen. 

“Thank you all for showing me that people still care and still love one another,” Wandell said.