Students "JAM" for after-school class

These days, the sounds of "Cripple Creek" and "John Henry" waft through the halls of Sparta Elementary School in the afternoons.

Sarah Garbade, an eighth grader there, is among students taking banjo as an after-school class. "So far in my family there's two guitars and a fiddle, and I thought it would be interesting to have a banjo in the family," she said after a recent practice session.

Garbade is among about 45 students taking mountain music classes in a new after-school program. Glade Creek and Piney Creek students join the Sparta students at their school for classes.

It is called Junior Appalachian Musicians, or JAM for short. Music teachers and some volunteer helpers are showing kids in fifth through eighth grades the ropes of banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin. There is no cost to students. "I wanted something else to do besides hang around the house," said Stefanie Renton, a sixth grader from Piney Creek who is learning fiddle. Like Renton, Michael Luck thinks the music is fun. "I had an interest in it since I was five years old," said the guitar student who is a sixth grader at Sparta.