Shirley Finger remembers the days when there used to be 19 clogging teams in Haywood County, when clogging was taught in the local public schools. Now, you don’t see as many young people doing traditional Southern Appalachian clogging.

Rather than see a treasured part of this region’s culture die out, Finger has been doing her part to keep clogging alive and kicking in Haywood County.

Over the last 33 years, she has worked with the Dixie Darlins dance team and helped teach new generations the individual style of Southern Appalachian clogging. Every Monday night at the Waynesville Armory, they meet and dance with all who wish to join in the fun.

Dancers have been as young as 5, but the current group ranges in ages from 14 to 52.

“It’s wonderful exercise,” Finger says.

This Labor Day weekend, the Dixie Darlins will join with lots of other area clogging teams, old-time and bluegrass bands, ballad singers, fiddlers, mandolin and guitar players, banjo pickers, storytellers and other performers in celebrating the 34th Smoky Mountain Folk Festival at Stuart Auditorium at Lake Junaluska.

More than a way of preserving culture, it’s a busy gathering of old friends and new faces over two nights of family entertainment Sept. 2 and 3. Each night features open tent shows on the lawn, where performers gather for impromptu jam sessions. That starts at 5 p.m. Then the main stage acts inside Stuart Auditorium start at 6:30 p.m. Main show tickets are $10 at the door, $7.50 in advance. Children 12 years old and younger get in free. Festivalgoers also get a complimentary slice of fresh watermelon.

For folks like Bill Byerly of Whitewater Bluegrass Company, a band that’s been playing music for more than 20 years, the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival is a chance to catch up with old friends — fiddlers, banjo pickers, clogging teams, and area musicians.

“We’re all traveling around so much, we never get to see them,” said Byerly, who has been coming to the festival with his band for a decade.

The audiences have changed through the years, but Byerly says there are lots of young faces in the crowd thanks to movies like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and young bands like Nickel Creek that have popularized a resurgence in bluegrass and old-time mountain music.

While some purists may draw the line between old-time mountain music and newer versions of bluegrass, the scene at the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival welcomes a hearty mix of both the old and the new.

“The generations are merging together a bit,” Byerly said.

Celebrating Southern Appalachian mountain music has long been a labor of love for guitarist and music teacher Larry Watson of Canton. Watson is also a longtime fan of the festival. Having taught guitar lessons since the early ’70s, Watson is continuing to record new albums in musical collaborations and solo projects. This year, he’ll be bringing his two new albums — Reflections and The Thoughts of Yesterday — to the festival. He’s also making his own guitars and banjos and just finished putting together an instructional DVD on how to play the banjo. Tapes, CDs and other retail items from the performers will be on sale in the lobby of Stuart Auditorium on both nights.

Watson comes each year to the festival to play but also to meet up with friends and hear some of his former students who are now main stage acts at the festival.

“We look forward to it every year,” says Watson. “It’s more of a big, gigantic front porch homecoming,”

For those who have not savored the sights and sounds of the festival, Watson compares it to eating a food you’ve never tasted. Once you try it, you’ll be sure to come back for more.

“Come and listen and have a good time with us,” he says. “There’s no way you can leave and not have a good time.”

While some festivals have traded in down-home atmosphere for showbiz glitz, festival performers will tell you the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival has been able to retain its traditional folksy appeal thanks to the efforts of Festival Director and emcee Joe Sam Queen.

“Of course, Joe Sam never runs out of energy,” Watson explains.

The festival emerged back in the1970s as a way of cherishing the region’s talented music and dance roots. Master fiddler Ernest Hodges and Joe Sam Queen, architect and grandson of legendary clogger Sam Queen, helped start the festival at Waynesville Junior High School. About 15 years ago, the festival moved to Lake Junaluska’s Stuart Auditorium for better acoustics and lakeside beauty. Now it’s one of the longest-running traditional folk festivals in the South, an event that gives visitors a chance to learn and appreciate authentic Western North Carolina culture.

“Our Appalachian identity, with its music, stories, song and dance, is something we can be proud of and must share with others to keep it alive,” Queen said. “It is an identity that enriches all who experience it.”

Over the years, generations of musicians have grown up around the festival, which not only attracts performers from all over the Southeast but also nationally recognized Grammy Award winners like Marc Pruett and David Holt, who make regular visits to the festival.

Visitors to the festival not only get to hear string bands, fiddlers and the clappity clap of cloggers but also dulcimers, harmonicas, the Native American flute, Scottish bagpipes and snare drums, spoons, and even a bowed saw. More than 200 dancers, singers and musicians will perform over the weekend, and the show generally goes on four or five hours solid, one act after another.

For more information about the festival call 828.452.1688. Tickets can be purchased at the Haywood County Arts Council office at 86 N. Main Street in Waynesville (828.452.0593) or at the front desk of the Administration Building at Lake Junaluska (828.452.2881).