What Makes Hart County, Hart County? UGA Team Wants to Hear From You

What makes a community a community? Who tells its stories, and how do those stories get passed down?

A University of Georgia research team is spending time in our community this year exploring those very questions, through a partnership with Archway Partnership, and they want to hear directly from the people who live here.

The project will include oral history interviews, storytelling, community workshops, and performances, creating opportunities for local residents to share their experiences and help document the people and stories that make Hart County what it is. It's a year-long project, and it kicked off with an event that was a little different from your typical community meeting.

Dance Across Cultures: A Music & Movement Workshop

It was a fitting kickoff for a project built on connection. Over the course of the next year, this partnership will continue gathering the stories that make our community what it is, one conversation, one workshop, and one performance at a time.

About the Project

The team behind this work is a UGA-funded faculty group specializing in inter-generational communication. During the 2026-2027 academic year, they'll be partnering with Hart County residents across ages and backgrounds on this humanities and arts cultural project. A development phase will run through fall 2026, leading up to a community voices exhibit and public performance in spring 2027.

Along the way, residents will have the chance to take part in movement workshops, oral history collection, creative storytelling, and historical document research, all building toward that public performance.

The goal is to research and celebrate contemporary local identity using interactive group techniques. The team believes Hartwell and Hart County's cultural strengths make this an excellent place to envision shared social futures and model how to build strong civic networks. Ultimately, the project will produce a tested model to share with other rural communities across Georgia, helping ensure resilient rural futures across the state.

Meet the Team

UGA faculty members Dana C. Bultman, Patricia Richards, and Elizabeth Lutz are working closely with Hart County to facilitate this project throughout the year.

As part of their research, the team has already uncovered some wonderful archived footage from the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia. The footage comes from a December 1987 film called "Your Hometown," narrated by actor James Whitmore, offering an entertaining and educational look at small-town rural America. Beginning at 41:30, you can see the early days of Hartwell, including a train ride through the Georgia countryside as the film highlights how a nearby lake, a train, and a street of quaint shops were helping Hartwell turn its economically troubled town into a budding tourist attraction. There's also historical footage of Mayor Joan Saliba and the town's attempt to revitalize itself through tourism and the Hartwell Railroad. It's neat to see how far we've come.

Stay tuned for more opportunities to get involved and share your story.

 

Watch the "Your Hometown" segment here:
https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/Detail/objects/557807