About a week before COVID-19 changed the way the nation celebrates and entertains, more than 200 people gathered at the Brown County Playhouse to applaud local youth and raise money for youth programs.

More than a dozen performers appeared on the stage, most of them students of Brown County musician Kara Barnard. Teens from BETA, the after-school youth program which this event was benefiting, also performed. Guitar lessons are part of their after-school programming at the Brown County YMCA.

Barnard has been teaching Brown County musicians for decades. She’d taught some of the parents of these students, too; in fact, several performers were part of musical families in blues, bluegrass and many other genres.

“Everybody on the stage with me tonight, they’re the loves of my life,” Barnard said.

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