RURAL HILL NEWS RELEASE
Contact: 704.875.3113 or office@ruralhill.net

Online Registrations OPEN for Competitors for the 17^th Annual Rural Hill Scottish Festival and Loch Norman Highland Games 

March 2, 2010 

HUNTERSVILLE, NC:  The 17^th Annual Rural Hill Scottish Festival and Loch Norman Highland Games are set for April 16 – 18, 2010 and online registrations are now open!  Complete details, schedules, registration information and advance tickets are available online at www.ruralhillscottishfestivals.net. 

Saturday and Sunday offer Scottish heavy athletics and a wide range of competitions that anyone can enter including children’s field competitions.  Online registrations are currently available for the sanctioned competitions including highland dancing, pipe band and individual piping & drumming, and harp & fiddle.  Amateur athletic competitions may be entered on site including the Scottish heavy athletics, battle axe, climbing wall, long bow archery, highland wrestling, heavy stone lift and carry, track & field kilted races, lassies games and children’s field competitions. 

Saturday will offer one of the highlights of the Games - the Professional Scottish Heavy Events.  Note: Professional athletes are by invitation only.  Hometown favorites and athletes from across the country come to do their best and break world records in events that include the 16 lb Stone, 22 lb Hammer Throw, 28 lb Weight Throw, 56 lb Weight Throw, 56 lb Weight Toss for Height, Turning the Caber, and Tossing the Sheaf.  “Class A” amateur heavy athletic competition will take place on Saturday with the remaining amateur classes competing on Sunday.  Professional demonstrations will also take place on Sunday.

The events of the Rural Hill Scottish Festival and Loch Norman Highland Games are deeply rooted in Scottish history.  “When celebrating in times of peace, the clansmen would go out into the mountains for a ‘great hunt’ and after, a feast and celebration would be held.  The rival clansmen would relax by testing each other's prowess at various sports - running, jumping, wrestling, or primitive forms of weight putting with stones.  Lastly the clansmen would vie with each other in piping and in dancing, the pipers taking it in turns to demonstrate their skills and the clansmen to demonstrate their agility and neatness of movement by dancing complicated steps to the pipe music.”  (Edited excerpts taken from The Essential Guide to Highland Games.)

With professional Scottish heavy athletic competition, amateur heavy athletics, piping and drumming, highland dancing, Scottish country dancing, harp and fiddle competitions, children’s activities, demonstrations and our famous historic encampment, the weekend will be fun for the entire family.   Proceeds support the preservation of Rural Hill.  For complete information on the 17^th Annual Rural Hill Scottish Festival and Loch Norman Highland Games, please visit our website at www.ruralhillscottishfestivals.net.

Rural Hill is located at 4431 Neck Road (off Beatties Ford Road) in Huntersville, 28078.  The former homestead of Major John and Violet Davidson, the 265 acre site is maintained and promoted by The Catawba Valley Scottish Society (CVSS).  Rural Hill features annual events such as the Rural Hill Scottish Festival and Loch Norman Highland Games, the Rural Hill Amazing Maize Maze and the Rural Hill Sheep Dog Trials.  Education programs and tours are available throughout the year. CVSS is a non-profit organization supported through membership and donations, and with proceeds from its events utilized for the preservation of historic Rural Hill and its education efforts.  For more information on events or for financial support accepted securely online, please visit www.ruralhill.net.