The GOF & Bluegrass Community Have Lost Two Beloved Members To Cancer

The Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival and the bluegrass community sadly lost two beloved members to cancer in the past week.

Doris “Cricket” Minick ran the Children’s Activities Program at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival for over 14 years until her recent illness. She was a retired special education aide and a longtime Girl Scout leader from Mariposa. She loved the GOF and loved children. To make sure her kids had only the best, she always brought her own supplies for use at her sessions under the canopy in the field behind the audience area.

Southern California native Dana Thorin was the owner of the Music Caravan, founded in 2010, which offered a wide variety of musical instruments and other musical items at bluegrass festivals nationwide. Before the Caravan, she traveled nationally with a booth selling John Pearce Strings. She was a regular vendor for many years at the Good Old Fashioned when she lived in Scott’s Valley. Later, she moved to Bremerton, WA to be near family. Her last festival appearance in California was just before the pandemic at the Strawberry Music Festival in Grass Valley. She was a graduate of Leadership Bluegrass and was a longtime supporter of the International Bluegrass Music Association.

They will both be missed by their many bluegrass friends.