In 1977, the Bluegrass Open Houses became Bluegrass Benefits to raise money for the 4th Bluegrass Festival upcoming in the fall. There was also an event called the Kerrville Folk Festival Reunion.
       The 6th Kerrville Folk Festival had a complete staff listing in the program.
       Miller was the business manager and the new staff coordinator was Carol Battersby.11 Bill Moss was the head of "security" and Joe Don Kotrolla and Tony Simmons headed up "sanitation."12 Joe Don took a dirty job and made it popular. Under his reign, "sanitation" became a crew everyone longed to be on and the first crew to have its own special t-shirts. They had slogans like "Our Job is Picking Up," and "If It Hits the Ground, It's Ours." Other supervisors were Ray Partain, Bob Long, Nancy Ford, Les Chapman, Ace Hindman, Felton Goodall and Doug Goss.11
       Charlie Land came in for the first time this year with the CB radio club that was volunteering their time before we had a dedicated "communcations" crew.
"Eddie Creel came that year also and worked on Communications, but got sent to work all over the crews as a kind of 'gofer.'"
Charlie Land14

"I arrived on the ranch for the 1977 Festival and started working on the soda crews. The Festival office manager was still Ray Partain. After 1979, I stayed on the ranch after the festival and became the office manager for 1980 - 1982. I lived in the building that was the Kerrtry store. He had a stove and a little shower. During the Folk Festivals he had to move in to Rod's trailer, but I still took showers in the store in the morning."
Steve Caruthers15
       The 3rd Country & Western Jamboree and the 4th Bluegrass Festival were joined by two new events on the ranch: The Kerrville Gospel Jubilee and Eight Great Hours. 8 Great Hours was a one day event in the Fall. It happened the Saturday before Columbus Day.
This was my first festival. It was four days, (no monday) and I came with a friend that brought her dog (think last year dogs were allowed on the ranch) I was not on staff, we camped – next to the store (which at that time was an apt. for Steve Caruthers. First festival I worked was a blue grass in 78, first folk was 79...
...Carolyn Norulak
1977 was the year Don and Doris married and went to visit Doug Orebaugh(Dons brother) football coach at Kerrville high school and found out about the festival. We came to the festival and fell in love with the people! We moved to Austin because of the wonderful friends we made there. We went from 1977 til 1992.Now that we are in our 70s its just too hot but we have many wonderful memories,and lots of good friends. I was there in 2007 took my 19 year old grandaughter she loved it. This changed my outlook on life for the better what a wonderful place! Thank you for the memories for our rocking chair!! Doris Orebaugh Love and kiss’s to you all.
111977 KFF program 121977 KFF program 13 1977 KFF program 14interview with Charlie Land 15interview with Steve Caruthers