This Saturday, The Mount Airy Museum of Regional History premieres its newest traveling exhibit, The Luthier’s Craft: Instrument Making Traditions of the Blue Ridge.

The exhibit explores the luthier’s craft of making stringed instruments and will include sections on banjo, guitar, and fiddle creation in the southern Appalachia and Blue Ridge Mountain areas, as well as biographical information on the luthiers.

The exhibit includes a number of hands-on activities, audio/visual, and interactive components. Admission to the museum is free on Saturday, but donations are encouraged.

Three luthiers are featured, including Johnny Gentry from the Mountain Park area, who crafts banjos; Wayne Henderson, a guitar-maker from the Mouth of Wilson area in Virginia; and a pair of old-time fiddler makers, Chris Testerman and Audrey Hash Ham.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Museum’s Luthier’s Craft exhibit opens Saturday

On Saturday the History Talks lecture series continues at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History with a free presentation about Eng and Chang Bunker, the famous Siamese Twins, and how their families were affected by The Civil War.

Tom Perry, local author of more than 30 books and a regional historian, will present the lecture at 2 p.m. on the third floor of the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History. The event is free and no advance registration is required.

The focus of Saturday’s presentation is Eng and Chang Bunker’s family and how they were affected by The Civil War, including Christopher and Steven, the sons of the Bunkers who enlisted to fight in the war in Virginia. Both sons were in the 37th Virginia Calvary Battalion.

Stoneman’s Raid came through Surry County in April of 1865, and Perry said he wants to address the “many stories and myths” about some of the men in the raid who visited the Siamese Twins.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Saturday History Talk focusing on Siamese twins Civil War

With spring in the air, Easter can be just around the corner, and the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is once again planning to offer a favorite of the season — the Batik Easter Egg decorating workshop.

This year, the workshop will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. on the second-floor classroom at the museum. Two workshops are being offered this year, on March 2 and March 23.

The classes will be led by Ukraine native and museum volunteer Maria Skaskiw, who is returning for another year after teaching the class last year.

Participants will learn the ancient Ukrainian method of decorating Easter eggs using simple, primitive tools to “write” intricate designs in beeswax. This method is traditionally used to make the much-admired European-style Easter eggs.

The process involves using beeswax to cover the egg before carving designs in the wax and dying it different colors.

It is a technique that has been used for centuries.

Read more: Mount Airy News - Dipping it old school

A rare chance to read aloud, and be read to, will be offered next Wednesday during the third annual African-American Read-In at Mount Airy Museum of Regional History.

The read-in — scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. in the museum’s second-floor conference room — will celebrate authors representing that group and their work, in conjunction with Black History Month.

“I think the event is important because it helps to make the celebration of African-American literacy a traditional part of the Black History Month activities,” said Emma Jean Tucker of The Plaid Cloth Literary Society, which hosts the annual read-ins. Tucker describes it as “a diverse group of ladies.”

To participate, one needs only to select works written by an African-American and be prepared to read a poem or an excerpt from a book or play, according to museum Executive Director Matt Edwards.

Read more: Mount Airy News - African American Read In planned at museum