Fourth annual ArtsFest Open Mic brings returning artists
Published 10:20 pm Monday, June 22, 2026
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WARSAW — The fourth annual Benton County ArtsFest Open Mic took place on Saturday, June 20, in Warsaw, featuring returning writers and musicians.
For the past two years, the event has been hosted at The Locker Room at the Lake, courtesy of the owners Dennis and Michelle Larson. Open Mic features poets, authors, novelists, and columnists. It also hosts a variety of musicians who play acoustic guitar, flute, accordion, and sing original music. Organized by former Sedalian, poet, author and educator Debbie Noland, it continues to grow each year.
“Every year we have had either 10 or 11 performers of music or spoken word, so the number has stayed consistent,” Noland said. “But the diversity has expanded … In that time, the music variety has consisted of mostly singer-songwriters, a guitar-flute duo, a ukulele duo, a bluegrass band, (an) accordionist, and (a) harmonica player. Spoken word performances have included storytelling, poetry, and journalism, as well as writers of mystery, fantasy, historical romance, memoir, essay, and inspirational prose.”
This year, presenting the spoken word were Katie Johnson, a free verse poet and former educator; Kimberly Knowle-Zeller, a writer, pastor, and mother of two; Adam Laudie, a poet; Daniel Meyer, a fantasy novelist; Mark Pottorff, a poet and retired educator; and Faith Bemiss-McKinney, a columnist. Musicians included 86-year-old Phil Wagner on guitar, Chris Jones on accordion, Alyssa McCloud on guitar, Cody Dunning on guitar and harmonica, and Randy and Robin Hoover (RH Silverwood) on guitar and flute.
After retiring and moving from Sedalia to Warsaw in 2017, Noland found a new arts community. Each summer, she diligently expands the annual event, explaining that her relocation inspired her to start the Open Mic.
“I started organizing the Mic when the Benton County arts community began offering an expanded arts event named the Benton County ArtsFest in 2023,” Noland said. “When they wanted to include an open mic and needed someone to be in charge, I felt like that was something I had the background to do.”
Noland formerly had experience with Sedalia’s SpoFest and Warrensburg’s Old Drum Open Mic.
“I joined in order to share my original poetry,” Noland said. “I also had a network of writing friends from both of those communities, and they were willing to jump with me into this new venue, at the same time I was looking around for people with present or past Benton County ties.”
She added that the event currently has around two-thirds of Benton County representation.
“I have to give a shout-out here to my Warrensburg friend Phil Wagner, who offered to help me by providing his personal sound system used for the Old Drum mic events,” Noland said. “We worked together to organize the first three mics in Benton County; then, anticipating a residential change, he left me in good shape to continue on my own with sound system assistance from my brother, Mark Homan, who also lives near Warsaw.”
Although many of the participants have ties to Benton County, some hail from Sedalia, Warrensburg, Jefferson City and Springfield.
Each year is different, but this year seemed very special, with writers and musicians offering moments from their hearts that brought tears to their own eyes and to those of audience members.
“It is not unusual for open mic presenters to share pieces that can trigger emotion, because it is often the intensity of basic human experiences that motivates them to write songs, poems, and stories,” Noland said. “Writing offers a way to examine, express, and deal with those, and to share them with others .. The open mic is unique among performance venues in that it brings like-minded verbal artists together into a smaller, more informal, and more intimate space than large performance venues. Mic performances tend to be more sharing than showing. The dynamic is overall less intimidating and more supportive. We all have those experiences; we all feel a need for our voices to be heard.”
Noland finds presenters by keeping her “eyes open for people” who can add to the program.
Additionally, she noted that writers and musicians often find each other through their creativity. She added that each year, performance is special for several reasons.
“ … because it is an experience that won’t ever happen again. Never again will this exact lineup of creative human effort come together in this place to share this particular combination of songs, poems, and stories,” Noland noted. “It is a one-time thing, a one-time opportunity. Writers are inherently interested in how other writers use their words to express the humanity we all share. This is why we do open mics.”
Faith Bemiss-McKinney can be reached at faith_bemiss@yahoo.com.
