Meet 2025 North Carolina Heritage Awards honoree Herman and Loretta Oxendine

Since 1989, the North Carolina Heritage Awards have honored artists statewide for their contributions to the cultural lives of their communities. The Folklife program of the North Carolina Arts Council is pleased to spotlight the five artists/groups who will be presented with the 2025 awards on June 7, at a public ceremony in Raleigh. In this episode, we visit Robeson County, where the culture keepers and artisans Herman Oxendine and his late wife, Loretta, spent their adult lives teaching and encouraging the revival of traditional Lumbee arts and knowledge. We speak with Herman and hear about his hand-built, coiled and traditionally fired pottery and his other artworks which honor traditional Lumbee craftsmanship. He also tells us about Loretta’s renowned pine needle baskets, which she learned to make at the age of eight by watching her older sister and her mother. Loretta was a leader in the revival of pine needle basketmaking among members of the Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina. The honorees for 2025 are: Round Peak Guitarist, Chester McMillian; Lumbee traditional artisans, Herman and Loretta Oxendine; North Indian classical musician, Gaurang Doshi; Brasstown Woodcarver, Helen Gibson; and Gospel Quartet, The Glorifying Vines Sisters. For tickets and more information, visit pinecone.org. Introduction music performed by Etta Baker. Arts Across NC is a podcast by and about the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, a state agency.

You can listen to Meet 2025 North Carolina Heritage Awards honoree Herman and Loretta Oxendine online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Meet 2025 North Carolina Heritage Awards honoree Herman and Loretta Oxendine is an episode from Arts Across NC by Arts Across NC.

This episode is 00:12:59 long.

This episode was published on May 27, 2025.

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