Dr. David Maas sprayed something soothing into his throat Saturday night at the Julius S. Scott Sr. Chapel at Wiley and sang Gene Autry's lugubrious song about love and loss, "That Silver-haired Daddy of Mine."

"If God would grant me the power just to turn back the pages of time, I would give all I own to atone," Maas sang, presenting the first act for Tellabration! 2005, an evening of storytelling and singing, part of a world-wide event.

Tellabration began in 1988 in Connecticut and it has since spread to every continent but Antarctica.

Attendees at Marshall's version of Tellabration were scarce, at about 25.

But those that did show up got to hear Ben Grant recite "The Mountain Whippoorwill (Or, How Hill-Billy Jim Won the Great Fiddlers' Prize)," by Stephen Vincent Benet, a poem about a mountain boy who made good: "I started off with a dump-diddle-dump, (Oh, hell's broke loose in Georgia)"

Liz Lawrence of Tyler, then told the Cinderella story from a new perspective. Cinderella turned into Cindy Ellen, a Texas girl who went to the rodeo and barn dance wearing a stetson and riding a white stallion, where she then captured Joe Prince's heart.

The fairy godmother used her pearl-handled six-shooters to spray fairy dust on Cindy.