Among the performers Saturday at Prelude to the Symphony in Florence will be the reigning Miss Cherokee, a great-great-niece of a Florence resident.

Feather Smith, 19, whose great-great-aunt is Kathleen Ludwig, will tell stories and demonstrate basket weaving, stickball, and the making of stickballs, blowguns, and clay bead necklaces.

Her father and brother will assist on horseback at the Symphony in the Flint Hills.

Smith, a college freshman, is from, Tahlequah, Okla., where Ludwig grew up on a farm homesteaded by her grandfather while Oklahoma was Indian
Territory.

Smith uses her role as Miss Cherokee to promote the importance of reading in the classroom and Native American families.