Building Resilience and Empowering Johnson County Youth Through Music

NEWS RELEASE - October 26, 2026

Building Resilience and Empowering Johnson County Youth Through Music

Paintsville, KY - On Thursday afternoons, the last bell rings at Johnson County High School. By 3:45, the halls have gone quiet, but one room is just getting started. Inside, guitars, fiddles, banjos, mandolins, and basses are waiting.

This is Pick & Bow, a free music class for kids who want to learn the sounds of Appalachia. It is a team effort between Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) and the Pick & Bow organization. For more than an hour, students tune, practice, and play instruments.

According to Tara Dewees, ARH Director of Behavioral Health Outreach and Recovery Services, getting in is easy. "Any student (of any age) can participate in the program. It's voluntary and not just for Johnson County Middle/High School students, but for any student in the county"

Currently, 15 students are enjoying free music lessons. Each student gets an instrument and can take it home to practice.

ARH Peer Recovery Coaches and local music teachers who work with Pick & Bow lead the program. Currently, the music teachers include Megan Gregory and Violet Updike (fiddle), Gauge Whitt (guitar), Phillip Ramey (mandolin), and Anabel Peterman (bass). Joseph Webb and James Leon Webb serve as substitute banjo and guitar instructors, and James Ray Webb serves as a substitute fiddle instructor when needed. Work continues to add more teachers to the program.

Bobby Hill, a recovery coach for ARH, says the best part is watching the kids. "It has been really nice to see how excited the students are," he said. He remembers one moment in particular. "I was able to watch one student who has experience with a fiddle show another student how to hold the fiddle and really share what she already knew."

Music is only part of the plan. The class meets once a week for the rest of the year, and each class includes a 20-minute lesson from the coaches, with songs before and after. The lessons cover saying no to drugs, making good choices, handling big feelings, and building strong friendships. Each lesson fits the students' ages.

For Eukie Ward, this program is personal. "I truly believe music is therapy," she said. "Sometimes music can express the feelings that we just can't put into words ourselves."

Ward comes from a family of singers and musicians, so she is thrilled to see a program like this for students. She wants people to picture what could happen.

"Imagine a child having the opportunity to learn to play an instrument for free, and that one opportunity becoming the very thing that changes their whole world." She smiles, saying, "We may have the next Chris Stapleton sitting right there in one of those chairs."

The learning doesn't stop with the kids. Parents and caregivers can participate in two sessions a year that teach families about prevention.

The program is funded by Johnson County's opioid abatement funds.

"Pick and Bow is about so much more than learning to play an instrument," Ward said. "It gives children an outlet, teaches healthy coping skills, supports their mental health, and helps with prevention."

James Leon Webb, substitute banjo instructor and president of the Stidham Old Time Music Association, says, "Pick and Bow for me is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to help grow more traditional musicians in Eastern Kentucky. I hope to see great musicians, along with a strong sense of community, come from the program."

Hill hopes the kids take one big lesson home with them. "I hope this teaches them that with practice they can accomplish anything," he said.

On Thursdays in Johnson County, that lesson comes with a song.

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About Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH)
Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) traces its roots back to 1955, when the United Mine Workers of America opened the Miners Memorial Hospital system - a network of 10 hospitals dedicated to providing care throughout the coalfields of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. Seventy years later, ARH has grown into a 14-hospital not-for-profit health system that serves more than 500,000 residents of central Appalachia each year. ARH hospitals in Barbourville, Harlan, Hazard, Hyden, Martin, McDowell, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Prestonsburg, West Liberty, Whitesburg, and South Williamson in Kentucky, and Beckley and Hinton in West Virginia, ensure that residents, tucked away in even the most remote areas, can access the highest quality of care without traveling hours from home. ARH's hospitals, clinics, multi-specialty physician practices, home health agencies, home medical equipment stores, retail pharmacies, and medical spas boast more than 6,700 employees with a network of more than 1,300 providers, making it the single largest employer in southeastern Kentucky and the third-largest private employer in southern West Virginia.