1999

RUSH & RUBY BUTCHER

Dancer Brookley Rush Butcher and his wife Ruby Jewell Salyer Butcher have been instrumental in teaching and promoting international folk dance in West Virginia for the past 50 years. Rush was born in Braxton County in 1923, and Ruby was born in Fuget, Kentucky, in 1928. The pair met while they were students at Berea College, married, and moved back to West Virginia. Since then, they have lived, farmed, and taught dancing in Nicholas County. Photograph by Michael Keller.