I sure miss the St. Louis Convention

[Ken Mizell]

I made it to St. Louis just once, in 1981. That was also my very first airplane ride, Eastern Airllines 727. I was in awe of everything I saw, all the players that I was around, and most importantly, their music. I had owned a Sho-Bud S-10 for about 6 months, and I hauled it with me just so I could take Jeff Newman's class. The only great player on my list that I didn't see was Ralph Mooney. That year I saw - Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, Tom Brumley, Jimmy Day, Herbie Wallace, Doug Jernigan, and many more I can't recall at the moment. It's an experience I'll never forget. The little molded wire steel guitar player that I use for my avitar was bought at Scotty's table. I was going through my steel stuff last week and found my name tag from the ISGC, and a couple of pins that I got while there.

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[Mitch Ellis]

Thank you, Jim and Scott. Great photos!

[Brett Day]

I went to the the ISGC in 2003, four years after I started playing steel guitar and wasn't playing on shows yet-I was just a listener or a fan-guy in the audience at the time, and while I was there, I talked with Buddy Emmons, Lloyd Green, Don Helms, John Hughey, Joe Wright, "Cowboy" Eddie Long, Sarah Jory, Jay Dee Maness, and many others. The highlight of that show for me was when I had the opportunity to try out a Carter pedal steel, trying my best to play the intro to Trace Adkins' song, "This Ain't No Thinkin' Thing" and then Mike Brown walked over to the Carter steel, and taught me a few chords, and I still have the bar I got from Bud Carter, John and Ann Fabian, and Billy Phelps-it's my main pedal steel bar. I also remember, even though I loved hearing the players, I wanted to check out the different steel guitars!