DON RAY SMITH Storyteller

"Pull up a chair, lean back and prepare to laugh, chuckle, snort, and guffaw at the droll humor, and mood-punctuating bongo drum playing of master storyteller Don Smith. He always has a wry and funny take on ordinary, or not so ordinary, life."

---Mandy Dick, Story Grandmother, southern Indiana

"Through the art of storytelling, Don Ray Smith offers lessons on life and insight into human nature. His colorful characters and keen descriptions of their personalities and perspectives will make you smile and, possibly, remind you of someone you know. My group responded to his stories with great enthusiasm."

--The Rev. Nancy Tinnell, Asso. Pastor, Middletown, Kentucky UMC

"Don has been telling me stories every time he visits...one of my favorite observations of Don is his principled take on our complicated communities. Bottom line, he's a good human, a good story teller, who can draw out the whimsy and the verities we all try to live with."
---Peg Taylor, Farm House Bed & Breakfast, Parkers Lake, Kentucky

"We had nothing but praise for our story tellers.  It was regarded as our best Tree Week event ever and one of the best presentations in African Cemetery No. 2 we have ever had."

---African Cemetery No. 2, Lexington, KY (October, 2025)

DON THE WRITER...

"(Don) writes about the ordinary, things all of us experience or know firsthand, and then he makes the ordinary hilarious. Fun to read aloud, fun to read yourself, just plain fun to read."

--Playwright Nancy Gall-Clayton (Louisville)

"Don's stories have you rolling with laughter one minute and commiserating the next. Smith uses humor to teach lessons we think we already know...Delicately and as surely as a surgeon, he opens the mind to race relations, and illuminates traditional prejudices."
---Mary Popham, Kentucky writer and reviewer