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c m eiown 1 Spo%hfl An enthusiastic crowd erupts in applause as Marvin Jaramillo blows the closing notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on a small pocket harp in Yellow Pine, Idaho (pop. 35). Jaramillo’s soulful rendition of the national anthem was an obvious crowd-pleaser during the town’s annual harmonica contest last August. The event drew 4,000 specta tors and contestants who traveled 25 miles of dusty, backcountry road to celebrate an instrument that has been played—and enjoyed—for more than a century in remote mining towns like Yellow Pine. “Whether you’re good or not, they go wild,” says Jaramillo, 50, after walking off the Main Street stage in Yellow Pine. Jaramillo is good. He can bend harmonica notes into gospel, jazz, blues or music from his ancestral Spain, and he won first place in the Yellow Pine Harmonica Contest's diatonic division the last two years. Jaramillo points to a 100-foot pondemsa ;sS (s' K pine as the other obvious reason for making die 19-hour drive from Albuquerque, N.M. Thousands more v. \ conifer trees blanket the steep mountains sur rounding Yellow Pine, a former mining town fc bordering the 2-million-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Gold prospectors first homesteaded the region in the early 1900 s, but Yellow Pine's lieyday came in rlie 194<)s wlien nearly SO |iercent i of the nation's tungsten (an alloy of steel) was ATTENTION DIABETIC METER RECALL ALERT So for in 2006 there have been 12 manufacturer notifications. There have been over 20 different Class I High Risk Recalls for diabetic meters issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005. A Class I recall means that there is a reasonable chance that the product will cause serious health problems or death. Most major diabetic meter manufactures have had a recall in the past 2 years! YOUR CURRENT METER MAY BE INVOLVED IN A RECALL Horping in the Pines Accuracy and consistency are extremely important when you test your blood! If you have Medicare call us now to get a NO COST to you replacement meter and new testing supplies! Sorry, we are unable to help you if you are in an HMO. Call Discount Diabetic at 1-800-853-6127. If you have Arthritis, Medicare will cover a large, moist heating pad for you at NO COST to you. * Deductible and copay may apply. Call 1-800-853-6127 . M ; *^lßlMPy SSfeyM l®3!w*rj extracted from the nearby Stibnire mine to produce World War II armaments. In the years since, die mine, which also produced gold, reopened only briefly when the precious metal’s price spiked in the early 1980 s. Now, Yellow Pine's economy relies on hunting, fishing and harmonica music. "You have to love living here for reasons other than business,” says Darlene Rosenbaum, who with her husband, Robert, owns and operates Yellow Pine Lodge. "We moved here over 20 years ago intending to fix and sell the place the next year, but we never got around to leaving." Harmonica fans line up all weekend for a taste of Darlene’s sweet apricot cobbler and pie made from huckleberries she gathered from the mountainside. Yellow Pine residents embraced the harmonica in 1990 as a way to celebrate a century of Idaho statehood. “(Former) Governor (Cecil) Andrus wanted every community to do something to celebrate the centennial,” recalls Lynn Imel, 65, who moved to Yellow Pine in 1968 with her husband, Dave. “Someone mentioned that the early prospectors came to Idaho with either their fiddles or pocket harps. Weiser, Idaho, already had a fiddle fes tival, so we decided on the harmonica.” Townspeople worked together to launch the contest, which drew 300 people the first year and since has grown into the second largest harmonica contest in the nation. “We try to find musicians from out of state a place to stay,” says Imel, a member of the Yellow Pine Enhancement Society, which hosts the annual contest. “This year we took the books out of the library so the Monroe Broth ers from Ohio could sleep there.” Most attendees stay in campgrounds in the nearby Boise National Forest or camp at the entrance to town where the music of harmonicas, fiddles and guitars filters nightly through the pines. “People have a perception of harmonica as a lowly instrument, a toy even. And it is," says Bud Boblink, of Schererville, Ind., a festival judge since 1996. “But when they hear the music you can make with it, there is this astonishment.” Thar sense of “Wow!” parallels what visitors experience when they drive to the rnmsmmms The annual harmonica contest welcomes all musical styles. remote town of Yellow Pine and are surrounded by the natural grandeur. Dave Imel first encountered the town’s magnificent setting while elk hunting in 1962. “I looked down on the town from that mountain over there and said, 'That's the place Page 10 American Profile