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Guided nighttime tours explore history of Boone cemetery

Bettie Bond and Eric Plaag with the Boone Historic Preservation Commission. Screenshot: KERI BROWN/WFDD

Bettie Bond and Eric Plaag with the Boone Historic Preservation Commission. Screenshot: KERI BROWN/WFDD

The town of Boone is celebrating its 150th anniversary with night tours of a historic cemetery during October. The events highlight the town’s history and the stories of people who are buried there.

The cemetery sits off of Howard Street near Appalachian State University. It began as a private cemetery owned by the Councill family, some of the town’s first residents.

“Some of the oldest graves up there reflect the first citizens of Boone and Watauga County dating back to pre-Civil War,” says Bettie Bond, a local historian who is leading one of the tours.

The site is also where enslaved people and three Union soldiers are buried. All of these graves are located in a segregated portion of the cemetery.

These stories are part of the guided nighttime tours taking place this month. Other themes are women and veterans in the cemetery.

Eric Plaag with the Boone Historic Preservation Commission says there’s even a tour called "Bizarre Boone".

“What I'm trying to accomplish in these scripts is to tell the story of the town’s history through these sort of unusual tales," says Plaag. "So for example, the guy who shoots his leg off out hunting wharf rats, while that is a bizarre way to die, the real story there is 'Hey did you know that from the [late 1910s] well into the 1940s there was a very serious wharf rat problem in Boone?' And the reason why there was a serious wharf rat problem is because the railroad, which arrived in 1918, brought those wharf rats to the town."

The guided cemetery tours are free and registration is required. Walkups will also be welcome, if a spot becomes available. The night tours will take place each Friday this month and on Halloween Monday.

Follow WFDD's  Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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