The Ozarks Heritage Research Center at Missouri State University-West Plains will host “Lost Love, Murder, and Hillbillies...Songs of the Ozarks” at 6 p.m. Oct. 27, at the center inside Garnett Library, 304 W. Trish Knight St. in West Plains. The presentation by Dawn Larsen will feature stories and songs, both old and new, connected to the Ozarks and its darker folklore and history.
The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Ozarks Heritage Research Center and West Plains Council on the Arts. Refreshments will be provided.
Larsen is a performer, storyteller, singer-songwriter and fifth-generation Ozarker who grew up surrounded by mountain music, arts and storytelling. She taught herself to play guitar at age 13 and has since performed at festivals, house concerts and listening room. She has also led workshops in performance and songwriting.
She completed a songwriting artist-in-residency in Northern Ireland in 2024 and has released two albums of original music. She also founded and operated a traveling Toby tent show for 10 years.
Larsen retired in 2025 as a professor of theater at Francis Marion University in South Carolina, where she specialized in American popular entertainment, particularly rural comedy.
