Our university hometown is nestled in the rolling terrain of the Heartland where the prairie meets the Ozarks. Boone County is named after the famous frontiersman Daniel Boone who moved his family to Missouri in 1799. During the 19th century, fleets of riverboats churned the waters of Big Muddy supporting the busy agricultural economy of the Missouri River Valley.

This month, the local city bank and community art league co-hosted their 59th Annual Boone County Art Show. Unintimidated by over 230 eclectic works of art submitted to the contest, the intrepid BRC founder entered his “Riverboat Gambler” 5-stringer into the exhibit, and his instrument  (no surprise here) was the only banjo in the mix.

To his delight, it sold the morning that the exhibit opened.

While stopping-by to see the show, a curious patron made a withdrawal from the bank for an evening planned at a nearby riverside casino . He noticed the Riverboat Gambler and inquired what `lucky` card was beneath the pair of dice on the peg head? The banjo guy advised, “It`s the Queen of Hearts, and she may break yours.”                                                   

Since 1995, the BRC founder`s band has been performing benefits for the local Children’s Hospital. Last month, our total donations to the Children’s Miracle Network surpassed $23K. Two-thirds of these tip monies have been collected at a family-friendly microbrewery where we have performed weekly since 2009.  Located just across the street from the art show, the brewpub was recently the site of a video project recorded by university journalism students.

Our community themed its end of summer “Arcana” art show on the Tarot card deck, a  psychic compendium of life issues and spiritual lessons referenced by fortune tellers.  Early last April, artists who dared to enter the contest were required to blindly draw a card from the mystical Tarot deck and then craft a work fashioned on the symbolism and message of that card. The BRC founder researched all 78 cards in the deck and decided to risk a leap into the field of contestants. He drew the “Hanged Man.” Not a death card, the hanged man is suspended upside-down by the ankle, so his bad habits and ill behaviors will fall away from him.

The subsequently constructed BRC banjo sported a peg head that features an inverted mother of pearl faun, a half-human mythical creature that is sympathetic to people but devious.

The fretboard displays doves fluttering away- like ill begotten misdeeds. The 5th fret space bears the Chinese character of Wisdom, and the 12th fret space contains the character for Peace.

In recent years, each BRC 5-stringer typically bear a signature mother of pearl inlay on the heel of the neck  for the eyes-only of the musician. At this prescribed site,  the “Tarotology of the Hanged Man” banjo presents a `Peace Dove` image in the hopes that mankind will someday learn to shed its selfish and hurtful behaviors.

So, what’s in the cards for you?