2012 Heritage Fellowship Recipient

Performing Arts

Kenny Sidle was born in Licking County, in the small town of Toboso, near the Hanover, Ohio, home where he now resides. He has lived in Licking County since then, playing a fiddlein and around eastern Ohio, the Midwest and even Canada. At the young age of five and a half, Sidle began to play fiddle under the teaching of his father and uncle. By the time he was fourteen or fifteen (somewhere around 1946 or ‘47), he and his sister, Marge, were performing at Hillbilly Park, near Newark, one of a number of country music entertainment parks (where families could camp) around the Midwest. One of the owners, Eddie Ruton.was an early supporter and fan of Sidle’s fiddling and invited young Kenny to play there. Kenny and Marge enjoyed the opportunity to play there and audiences clearly appreciated their performances. Sidle recalls a particular time in his early days at Hillbilly Park when owner Millie Ruton asked him to sing “My Son Calls Another Man Daddy,” and his performance made some of the women in the audience weep. That memory seems to indicate the draw that performing and audience appreciation had for Sidle, even in his teens. The support of the Rutons and Hillbilly Park provided the public exposure that launched Sidle’s long career as a musician and competitive fiddler.