Nic Schumer regales the congregation with a history in the crucial role that churches played in preserving Welsh culture, as Carol Ellis, Gymanfa Ganu leader, looks on.

We are proud to count among our membership two Eisteddfod winners at this year’s North American Festival of Wales (NAFOW). And, another Cymry (‘Welsh person’) among us is the newly elected president of the Welsh North American Association (WNAA)!

We are lucky to have all three of these champions of Welsh culture in our midst.  They not only make our reunions richer, but they spread the beauty of Welshness everywhere they go!

It came as a delight—but no surprise—that our outstanding Gymanfa Ganu leader, Carol Ellis, won the WNAA Past Presidents’ Award in Hymn Singing.

A happy win came to Nic Schumer, who illuminated the congregation at this year’s Salem reunion.  Nic won the award for Welsh Learner’s Recitation.

Ian Samways at the Eisteddfod in Wales

As president of the WNAA, Ian Samways, who joined us in 2014, but was in Wales during this year’s reunion, will be helping to keep Welsh traditions alive across nations.

This is a momentous year for Salem. 175 years ago, a group of Welshmen and Welshwomen met in the North Ebensburg home of Thomas and Rachel Davis to found this Calvinistic Methodist Church. Immigrants, who had traveled from the coal country of South Wales to settle in the coal county of Cambria County, PA, founded a church called Salem that would keep their old country traditions alive, but enable them to create new ones for their new life. The enduring Cambrian traditions laid down by the founders and the faithful who have carried this congregation forward over so many lifetimes continue to be renewed today!