Ray Hicks

Hicks died of prostate cancer at a nursing home in Boone, North Carolina on April 20, 2003. His wife Rosa died on January 31, 2014.

In 1991, he received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award.

He was a recipient of a 1983 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

In 1983, Hicks received a National Heritage Fellowship, which is a lifetime honor given to master folk and traditional artists.

As a featured performer, Hicks took the stage at the first National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee on October 7, 1973. After this performance, he was invited back many times in the years that followed.

In 1951, Hicks was invited to visit a teacher's classroom at Cove Creek Elementary School. It was the first time he told stories in a public setting.

The Hicks family lived in conditions of extreme poverty in the relatively isolated mountains of North Carolina near Banner Elk. The family got by selling carpets handwoven by Rena and dulcimers crafted by Nathan as well as other work. In 1945, Nathan committed suicide. Ray was drafted into the army, but was rejected because he had broken his arm. Rena died in 1975, leaving Ray the Hicks' home-place and child raising duties for his younger siblings.

Lenard Ray Hicks (August 29, 1922 – April 20, 2003) was an Appalachian storyteller who lived his entire life on Beech Mountain, North Carolina. He was particularly known for the telling of Jack Tales.

Ray Hicks was born on August 29, 1922 in Banner Elk, North Carolina. He was the fourth of 11 children of Nathan and Rena Hicks. He had Cherokee ancestry, traced through his great-grandmother.