Happy CHEAT FEST FRIDAY!

OVERVIEW:
Ed Eddy TV: Cheat Fishing Update at 5PM
Jakob’s Ferry Stragglers LIVE at 7-8:30PM
Rumpke Mountain Boys 8:40-10PM
AND – More Kid’s Fun, Community Song Shares All Day, Virtual Silent Auction, Virtual 5K, Online Raffle, & Festival Tees

SATURDAY:
A Full Day of Music (2-9PM) From all of the Festival Bands’ Homes to Yours!
Mini-Movie Premier: Deep Breaths by Joel Wolpert at 5PM

Today’s welcome notes from FOC Board Member Rick Chaney

Reminder: The FOC Campground is Closed – Please do not gather there right now.

TONIGHT – A Double Header, Live to Your Living Room
Tune in on the Cheat Fest Facebook Live OR Youtube Live Channel at 7PM

Ed. Eddy T.V. Friday Surpriseday
Garrett Richardson – Cheat River Fishing Update
5PM Friday

Community Song Share

Ellie & Ryan from the Woods

Jason Jaros

Eric George

Emily Carlson

Todd Burge

Rick from home!

Feature: FOC Fire Pit Raffle!

Click to Donate to FOC for an Opportunity
to win this awesome, custom Fire Pit! (Scroll Right in square store!)

Friday in the Kids Tent!

Ways to Support FOC:

If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially support us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork! Also in the square store is our Custom Fire Pit Raffle (scroll right in the store). Finally, you can peruse the Virtual Silent Auction! – Filled with local and regional treasures. All proceeds support the work of Friends of the Cheat

Click here to enter our Virtual Silent Auction!

Ticket Donation & Festival Shirt Orders & Raffle Tickets! 

Become a Member of Friends of the Cheat

Click to Become a Member!

Subscribe To Cheat Fest From Home Emails

Welcome to Thursday of Cheat Fest From Home Week with former FOC Restoration Project Manager, Kevin Ryan

Reminder: The FOC Campground is Closed – Please do not gather there right now.

Community Song & Poetry Share

Today is Gold!

Wanted Rivers, a Poem by Susan Sauter

Kelsey & Joanna

Loyalsock by Emily Carlson

Mermaids of West Virginia by Derek Proulx

Rodeo Girl by Gary Hoffman

Lea marra

Deep Breaths
A Mini-Movie Premier coming at you from The Wolpertinger
Cheat Fest Saturday at 5PM

Thursday in the Kid’s Tent

Fest Art Coloring Pages

Ways to Support:

If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially support us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork! Or, peruse the Virtual Silent Auction! – Filled with local and regional treasures. All proceeds support the work of Friends of the Cheat

Click here to enter our Virtual Silent Auction!

Ticket Donation & Festival Shirt Orders 

Become a Member of Friends of the Cheat

Click to Become a Member!

Subscribe To Cheat Fest From Home Emails

Wednesday Welcome from FOC’s Beth Warnick

Community Song Share

Another Big Thanks to all of the folks who’ve been sending in their songs, we love you!

George Bell

Honeysuckle and Thorn by Emliy Carlson

Dirt by Ben Dube

Eric Pifer playing Fire & Rain by James Taylor

Pap’s Cabin by Nae Paugh

Diane Henderson

Too Many Boats by Jerry Vandiver

Ways to Support:

 If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially support us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork! Or, peruse the Virtual Silent Auction! – Filled with local and regional treasures. All proceeds support the work of Friends of the Cheat

Become a member

Click here to enter our Virtual Silent Auction!

Ticket Donation & Festival Shirt Orders & Raffle! 

Wednesday in the Kid’s Tent

Fest Art Coloring Contest PDF Download

Fest Art Coloring Contest – PDF Download

Big Thank You to our Generous Sponsors who Stuck with us Rain, Shine, and Online!

Please take our Preston Trail Towns Survey!

Because CheatFest is a celebration of Spring and new life, Friends of the Cheat is excited to announce the birth of Preston Trail Towns! Preston Trail Towns is a program connecting people across Preston County to build sustainable communities around trails and outdoor recreation. We know that the future in West Virginia is in its beauty and its opportunities to go outside and play.

We need your help! Please fill out the Preston Trail Towns Survey at https://cheatfest.org/cheat-fest-from-home-2020/preston-trail-towns-survey/. It takes a couple of minutes and will help us hit the ground running!

For more information about Preston Trail Towns, follow “Preston Trail Towns” on Facebook and contact Kelley Burd-Huss at kelley@cheat.org

Subscribe To Cheat Fest From Home Emails

Ellie Bell Welcomes you to Tuesday’s Cheat Fest From Home

Living Room Set from Members of Two Ton Twig – Tonight! (Tuesday) at 6:30PM

Two Ton Twig explores of the fringes of traditional bluegrass and string band music with their eclectic blend of modern influences. Tune in tonight at 6:30 to see these Cheat Fest favorites from their living room (and yours)!

Jim Meckley – Tonight! (Tuesday) at 7PM

Jim Meckley, or Back Gate Jimmy, is not only a talented musician, but is also a pillar of Cheat Fest. From his seasonal home at the river, Jim has helped bring so many parts of the fest together. This year, he had already volunteered much of his time to organize the vendors. And now, with the cancellation, he brings us his beautiful tunes, from the festival grounds to our homes! Enjoy, our friend, Jim Meckley.

UPDATE: Ah – The internet!! We’re frantically trying to get this one going. Adam Payne to the resue – this video will be on Facebook Live at 7PM. We’ll work on getting it posted here after. Click here to link to the Facebook. 

Fest Emcee Allen Davis’s Rendition of What a Wonderful World, Cheat Fest Style

Ed. Eddy T.V!

A Walk Along Indian Creek with Hannah Spencer
Premier: Tuesday, April 28th at 6:00PM – Kid Friendly!

Join Hannah Spencer for a walk along Indian Creek, a tributary to the Youghiogheny River. We will learn about plants and animals that inhabit the stream banks of Indian Creek.

Hannah is a woods-loving creature and goes on outdoor adventures as the Outreach Coordinator for Mountain Watershed Association, a watershed organization in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.

Tuesday in the Kid’s Tent

Fest Art Coloring Contest PDF Download

The Virtual 5K Foot Race is ON!

Runners can submit their race results to this form, using the honor system!

Registration is open all the way through Saturday, May 2, click here to learn more & join!

Ways to Support:

If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially support us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork! Or, peruse the Virtual Silent Auction! – Filled with local and regional treasures. All proceeds support the work of Friends of the Cheat

Click here to enter our Virtual Silent Auction!

Ticket Donation & Festival Shirt Orders 

Become a Member of Friends of the Cheat

Click to Become a Member!

Friends of the Cheat – Our Mission

Another big thankyou to Allen Davis for putting together this video on behalf of Friends of the Cheat!

Subscribe To Cheat Fest From Home Emails

Hey, thanks for being here. We have a lot in store for you, and we hope you enjoy a little bit of the Cheat Fest magic from wherever you are right now. We also hope that you’re hanging in there, and finding some beauty within the chaos.

Cheat Fest is at it’s heart a community affair, and like always, this wacky ‘festival’ has come together thanks to so many folks putting love and energy into it – this year in totally new ways. Throughout the week we’re going to share kid’s activities, watershed talks, and songs from the community. We’ve got a virtual 5K going all week — to which everyone is invited (required) to join — and a silent auction full of goodies. On Friday and Saturday we’re going to have a stacked line-up of music to get you grooving at home, we’ll hear poetry, we’ll have a mini-film release from a local legend, who knows what else will happen.

If you want to donate financially, become a FOC member (at the bottom of this page) or head over to our store to buy a “ticket” and this year’s t-shirt. If you’re not in a position to do so, don’t sweat it, you’re welcome here too.

This is our virtual home for the week. Every day I’ll share a page of Cheat Fest goodies right here, on our website (cheatfest.org). We’ll also stream on our Facebook & our Youtube Channel. (I’ll probably also learn how to make things more smooth as the week progresses – so bear with me on the technical pieces.)

Here’s to the 26th Annual Cheat River Festival. A labor of love, for the river we love, from our home to yours. Here goes nothing!

The rules:
This is a family friendly event
Glass is totally fine
Pets are encouraged
On Thursday we wear denim
Wash your hands

Happy Cheat Fest Week!
Lauren (Festival Coordinator)

Welcome from FOC’s director, Amanda Pitzer

Monday in the Kid’s Tent

Fest Art Coloring Contest PDF Download

Welcome to Virtual Silent Auction

Click here to enter our Virtual Silent Auction! It will be live from noon today, Monday, April 27 through 5PM next Sunday, May 3rd. A massive thank you to Lisa for organizing this and for adapting so quickly to this new online format. More thankyous to the amazing sponsors, vendors, artists & friends who donated to make this possible. All proceeds will help off-set the cost of cancelling the festival and will support the work of Friends of the Cheat. We hope you enjoy!

Click to Peruse the Virtual Silent Auction! 

Ed. Eddy T.V!

Tune in today, Monday April 27th at 7PM to see Charlie Walbridge’s Education Eddy talk: The Glory Days of Cheat River Rafting. 

In the 1970’s and ’80’s the Cheat Canyon was a very popular spring rafting venue, as big as the famous Gauley River in the fall. Roughly 40,000 people ran the river commercially each year. Charlie Walbridge and other other guides from that era will share their stories, including “Black Monday” and other accounts of guide-assisted mayhem.

Charlie Walbridge started paddling whitewater in college and first visited West Virginia in the late 60’s. An active C-1 slalom and wildwater racer, he worked part-time as a river guide on the Cheat River in the late 70’s. He ran a mail order company, Wildwater Designs, for 22 years. After the company closed he and his wife, Sandy, moved to Bruceton Mills. He worked as a sales rep for Northwest River Supplies in Idaho and serves outfitters from Maine to Georgia. A long time member of the American Whitewater board, he maintains their accident database and produces a bi-annual annual report of U.S. whitewater fatalities. He’s also an ACA instructor-trainer in swiftwater rescue and teaches regularly on the area’s rivers. He’s produced several books and is especially proud of A Canoe and Kayak Guide to West Virginia, the updated version of the publication that first brought him to the state. He’s also on the board of Camp Mowglis, the place where he learned to canoe.

Music this Week

We’ve got a ton of music in store for ya’ll, so stay tuned for concerts from members of these awesome groups, who are so generously sharing their performances with us. HUGE shout out and thank you to our musical director, Adam Payne.

The Rumpke Mountain Boys, Jakobs Ferry Stragglers, The Dirty Grass Players, The Boatmen, Stewed Mulligan, William Matheny, Aristotle Jones, Lords of Lester, The Flybirds, Shelf Life String Band, The Cooley Gang, Two Ton Twig & Jim Meckley

Community Song Share

As we all know, so much of the music at Cheat Fest comes from the community. Each day of Cheat Fest from Home week, we’re sharing music that folks sent in from their homes. A huge thank you to everyone who recorded a themselves, it’s been such a treat to listen and watch ya’ll. (If you’d like to share your music from home, post a video of yourself on our Facebook page, or send me a youtube link at Cheatfest@cheat.org)

I Love My Home, Down Country Roads by Jen Osha & Son

Ryan Gaujot

From the Hip from the 2014 Cheat River Festival

Ain’t No Ash by Emily Tanzey

Chris Felton

ON YOUR MARKS – GET SET – GO!!!!
The Virtual 5K Foot Race has begun!

Welcome to the Cheat River Festival Virtual 5K Foot Race. We welcome all racers here — run, walk, or visualize a race from the comfort or confines of wherever you are. Registration is free, though folks who would like to donate can do so by buying a ticket to the virtual festival. Registration is open all the way through Saturday, May 2nd, and registered runners can submit their race results to this form. The open race period is now through Sunday, May 3rd at 5PM.

Meet our new race coordinator Kelley-Burd Huss’s in her kick-off video below to learn more!

How to Support Friends of the Cheat

All proceeds from this virtual festival go towards supporting the work of Friends of the Cheat. If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially contribute to us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork. We cannot yet say when shirts will be printed, but will be sure to use safe handling and shipping practices once we are able to place the order. We truly appreciate all donations; they go towards the costs of cancelling the festival and support the work of Friends of the Cheat.

Ticket Donation & Festival Shirt Orders 

Become a Member of Friends of the Cheat

From Monday, April 27 – Sunday, May 3rd, we’ll be sharing musical performances, Education Eddy presentations, and kid’s activities, we’ll host a Virtual 5K Foot Race, curate our most silent, silent auction yet and more (in the works).  We invite everyone to join regardless of financial situation, and those who are in a place to donate can do so by buying a ticked or a fest t-shirt. Read below to see how you can get involved and keep your eyes and ears open for more info to come!

Sending Cheat Fest Love!
Friends of the Cheat

Virtual 5K Foot Race

Join us in movement & in spirit for a virtual 5K foot race. We’ll be running, from our homes, throughout Cheat Fest Week. Registration is free, with the option to donate. Learn more and register here today! 

“Kid’s Tent” – Colors of the Cheat Coloring Contest!

Kids & Adults Festival Art Coloring Contest – Download Here! 

If you have a printer, print the Cheat Fest Artwork linked below, pick your favorite artwork and color it in with crayons, markers, paints, scraps of colored paper, dirt, or whatever you’ve got. If you don’t have a printer, no big deal, draw a picture inspired by the Cheat Fest Artwork OR create your own festival artwork!!

Take a photo of your (or your kid’s) artwork (entries limited to: infinity), post it on our social media with the hashtag #colorsofthecheat AND e-mail it to cheatfest@cheat.org with the subject line: COLORS OF THE CHEAT. We’ll share them with the community and come up with winners based on unforseen and unknowable criteria! There will be a prize!

Virtual Silent Auction

This year we’re taking our silent auction to a whole new level of silence. Many of our vendors, artists and sponsors are still generously donating items to this effort. Bid on your favorite items throughout Cheat Fest From Home week. All proceeds will go towards covering lost festival expenses and supporting the work of Friends of the Cheat. If you’d like to donate something, please e-mail Lisa at silentauction@cheat.org. Thank you to Lisa for adapting and leading this!

Community Song Share

Even though we can’t gather this year, we can still share music and joy from afar. Some of my favorite Cheat Fest sets come from the campfire jams that dot the festival grounds. If you can, record yourself playing a song and send it to us to share with the community during Cheat Fest Week!

Education Eddy T.V.!

Tune in throughout Cheat Fest From Home Week where we’ll release videos from folks we love about the watershed we love! Get ready to hear local stars Charlie Walbridge talk whitewater history, Amanda Pitzer talk about the Dam, and more! And, if you’d like to present, contact Lauren at Cheatfest@cheat.org!  Check out our tentative line-up, as it comes together at the Ed Eddy Page Here! 

Virtual 5K Foot Race

Join us in movement & in spirit for a virtual 5K foot race. We’ll be running, from our homes, throughout Cheat Fest Week. Registration is free, with the option to donate. Learn more and register here today! 

Festival “Ticket” Donations & T-Shirts

If you’re a Cheat River lover and looking for a way to financially support us during this time, consider either donating by buying a “ticket”, or getting one of the beautiful shirts featuring John Victor’s artwork! We cannot yet say when shirts will be printed, but will be sure to use safe handling and shipping practices once we are able to place the order!

$30 for Friday & Saturday “Non-Event” Donation
Festival Shirts Now Available for Pre-Order

Whitewater Recreation

Although for us in the East this is the glorious spring paddling season, we are all called to adjust our behaviors, as a community, for our collective health. FOC owned and managed river access sites are open for use following CDC guidelines. However, we have closed the bathrooms at the festival site Cheat Canyon put-in. We are discouraging the gathering of groups over 10 and will monitor site use and make changes as necessary. Stay well within your skill level while undertaking any risky activity during this time – you don’t want to take up a hospital bed or distract emergency responders because you injured yourself. 

Furthermore, please stay close to home with any outdoor activity – in your own zip code please! Traveling to that special camping spot or whitewater run exposes locals in rural communities with already limited health care. Think about how your actions could impact others. This article from Paddling Magazine can help – but please don’t explore new locations right now.  And remember, always stay 6 feet apart from your companions, on land and in the water!

With certain precautions, getting outside is a great way to stay active, and connected. This article, shared originally by our friends at OVEC, reminds us that there are many lessons to be learned from nature. We may have to be physically distanced but we can still stay connected – like the trees in the forest.

• Please don’t travel far from home to paddle; this is a great moment to practice skills in flatwater, revisit the home-town run you first learned on, or focus on shoulder health & injury prevention!
• Don’t gather in groups and maintain physical distance (this might mean figuring out human powered shuttle options)
• Stay well within or below your skill level. Let’s support the healthcare system by staying injury free!
• Definitely get outside, stay active, happy & healthy!
• Check out this great article on Paddling Activity in Quarantimes by American Whitewater

It is with great sadness that we share Friends of the Cheat’s decision to cancel all in-person parts of the Cheat River Festival this year. We feel it is important to move in step with the broader suspension of gatherings to support a robust and unified community response in protecting our most vulnerable neighbors.

During this difficult time where we must move to physically distance ourselves, we are called to creatively discover ways to come together and support one another. Challenges like this magnify the reality that our watersheds are also our health-sheds, in which our collective well-being is inextricably intertwined. In the coming weeks, we will be shifting our energy towards creating ways we can adapt and salvage those parts of the festival that can still have life, even from afar. Please stay tuned – and let us know if you have any ideas!

Cheat Fest is FOC’s primary fundraiser, providing a significant portion of the operating budget for the organization each year.  Right now, we are working hard to figure out how we can provide financial stability for FOC and its staff without this event. There is a lot of heavy lifting our community must do to support local and small organizations as we strive to weather the financial impacts of this public health crisis.  We know that many folks will feel the economic effects of this crisis, but we ask those of you who are able to continue your financial support of FOC, please do so.

Beyond the financial implications of the decision to cancel Cheat Fest, we are heartbroken that we will not be able to greet spring with our Cheat River Family. For us, Cheat Fest is the best weekend of the year – it revives and refocuses our energy as we are reminded how many people are invested and care deeply about what we do. For many of you, Cheat Fest is a family reunion of sorts, and we recognize the disappointment you may feel. Know that we will all be together soon, and that the spirit of Cheat Fest lives on.

If you are one of the many people or organizations who was planning to be a part of the festival, please wait for us to follow up with further logistics about moving forward.

$30 for Friday & Saturday “Non-Event” Donation
Festival Shirts Now Available for Pre-Order

This year the downriver race will be held in celebration of the memory of Rick Gusic. The race, which travels through the Cheat River Canyon, draws hundreds of boaters from throughout the region to the largest mass-start, whitewater race this side of the Mississippi, if not the largest in the US!

Rick’s father, Tony, introduced him to whitewater boating in Junior High School.  He fell in love with the sport and quickly became a very good kayaker.. understatement!  He also fell in love with the mountains, the valleys and the rocks; the eddies, waves, and the falls and the hydraulics… for Rick it was a love affair with the tumbling water, its beauty and its challenges and he was driven to share it. 

He started guiding commercial raft trips on the Cheat while still in high school. He taught kayaking technique at every river venue and winter pool session that he could. Rick led multiple road trips to rivers through the eastern and western  US with his best friends for years, great times! Finally, he created award-winning whitewater boating videos must-have classics, for every experienced kayaker! 

Friends of the Cheat started celebrating the Cheat River with a festival about the same time Rick took over the race from Rob Voorhees.  Rick’s first race participants reconvened at the festival that weekend and the idea was hatched. The informal race should be made formal and become part of FOC’s Cheat Festival celebration. Rick Gusic embraced the idea and managed the Cheat Mass-a-Cre-ence for the next 22 years ~  including this past Spring. The Cheat was to be celebrated by the boaters in a “mass gathering” with “mass interaction” and the Cheat River Massacre-ence was born. 

After a valiant battle with cancer Rick passed away in August of 2019 at the age of 52. Family, friends, FOC and the boating community are deeply saddened by this loss. But we are all grateful for his tireless commitment to our Cheat River ~ a commitment which set an example for so many others. His presence will be truly missed but he will be in our hearts and thoughts each May when the horn sounds and a  spectacle of the Massacre-ence sets off once more!  

Thank you Rick!

After Party ~ Awards ~ Rick Gusic Tribute Information

The race after party will be held on the festival grounds Friday evening at dark – entrance for Friday night will be provided to each racer.  In addition to awards and a race recap the night will finish with a tribute to Rick Gusic. Even if you are a non racer, we would encourage you to attend this party.  Friends and family will be presenting some of Rick’s trip videos and telling great stories. Prizes and beer will be available at the party.

Race Shirts

Racers who pre-register by April 10th will be guaranteed a race shirt, and any folks who would like to purchase this year’s race shirt, which is a tribute to Rick, can do so on our ticket sales website here.  Please order by April 10th to guarantee a shirt. 

Kids twelve and under are welcome at Cheat Fest for Free! And, the Kid’s Tent is their home planet to learn skills, craft with up-cycled materials, and meet friends. This year our theme is “Out of This World”, and we’re planning all sorts of extra-terrestrial treasures for the young ones — kids can look forward to AMD tie dye, alien crafts, giant bubbles, a scavenger hunt and more. Kid’s Tent activities will end with the famous Kid’s Parade! 

A huge thank you to Rachel Griffith, Abby Foster, Lauren Stinespring & Mary Luckini for dreaming up and bringing together such a magical world for our festival kids! 

Folks – it’s time! Behold, the 2020 Cheat River Festival Music Lineup. Thank you to our incredible musicians for donating their time and talents! Thank you to Amanda and Adam for creating another foot stompin’ lineup!

Pre-Order your Tickets and Tees Starting TODAY! 

See You in May!!!