Hayden residents will take the stage Friday night to do something the town has always done, even if it has not always had a spotlight or formal venue: telling stories about the community and its people.

The Hayden Arts Council and the town of Hayden will host a storytelling competition at the Hayden Center Auditorium, 495 W. Jefferson Ave., from 6-8 p.m. Friday. The event involves participants sharing 10-minute stories rooted in Hayden’s past, present or future. Organizers say that while it is meant for entertainment, it is also a meaningful way to celebrate and preserve the community’s history as it navigates a shift away from coal mining and power production.

The event is free and open to the public.

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“It’s something that we as a town have had in our backyard for as long as we can remember,” said Sarah Stinson, the arts council’s executive director. “I think there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the future.”

Stinson said the idea grew out of conversations about Hayden’s future and what will come next as the community transitions. She also noted that the event is a chance to reflect on what came before, especially for transplants who were not here for the many decades that played a pivotal role in shaping the town’s identity.

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“A lot of people, myself included, who have only moved here in the last five or so years, don’t know what Hayden was like in the ’40s through the ’90s,” Stinson said.

The competition was developed in collaboration with Dylan Harris, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Stinson said Harris has been working with town officials on the concept of “just transition,” a term used to describe efforts to support communities that are moving away from economies that have long relied on fossil fuels.

Harris approached Stinson and others with an idea to gather stories from longtime residents as well as families with deep roots in Hayden. With grant funding available, organizers decided to create a formal competition, complete with cash prizes.

The first-place story will win $750, with $500 for second place and $250 for third.

She said the prizes have helped draw interest and participation, with 10 storytellers signed up to compete.

“A lot of them are from families that have lived here for generations,” she said. “So I am very excited to hear their stories.”

Competitors will be asked to share stories connected to Hayden’s community and history.

“It could be a true story or it could be a tall tale,” Stinson said. “It can be anything, as long as it’s based on Hayden’s past, present or future.”

Judging will be done using a rubric by a three-member panel. Judges are Laurel Watson, curator at the Hayden Heritage Center; Thea Wigglesworth, a Hayden Arts Council member with a background in theater and performance; and Bonnie Girton, who works at Wild Goose Coffee at the Granary and also serves as the arts council president.

Wigglesworth said she volunteered to judge because the event combines community storytelling with performance, both things that she has experience with through theater.

“Storytelling is not just the tale itself, but the way that the tale is told,” she said.

She said the competition’s timing matters, especially as Hayden looks ahead to changes that could reshape the community’s identity and create new historical pathways.

“I think it’s extremely important,” Wigglesworth said when asked about preserving stories during a transition. “The coolest thing about this event is that we’re not only asking the participants to imagine the past and relay those stories, but also to think about the future and imagine the worlds they want to see in Hayden.”

Wigglesworth said the event is about more than nostalgia, and she explained that storytelling can help inform what comes next while also revealing what residents value most about the town.

“Either using the past to inform the future or hearing the community’s imaginings of what the future can hold is extremely important,” she said.

That balance of reflection and forward-looking hope is what organizers say they want the event to provide. While formal planning started through Harris’ work and funding, Stinson said the heart of the event is something more familiar, as neighbors gather, share a laugh and remember the moments that make a place feel like home.

After the stories are finished and the judges discuss, winners will be announced the same evening. Organizers also plan a reception afterward, which will provide attendees with time to mingle and continue swapping stories.

“We all can laugh at the stories and cry at the stories,” Stinson said. “And then afterward, we’re going to have a little reception for people to mingle, get a drink and continue to share stories and hang out with their neighbors.”

One of the competition’s most distinctive elements is that neither the judges nor the audience will know what is coming.

“We decided not to preread or prescreen the stories, because we wanted the audience and the judges to hear them for the first time,” Stinson said.

She said those firsthand accounts give depth, dimension and empathy to a community that can’t be captured through timelines or statistics alone.

“We are kind of going into it blind, which I think is going to be the most fun,” she said. “Who knows what these stories are going to be.”

Stinson said she has a desire to hear as much local history as possible, which could include anything from lighthearted memories to stories that explain the town’s landmarks and family names.

“Anything from town gossip, to any scandals that people were in, or funny stories,” she said.

She said she spent weeks exploring local history through the Hayden Heritage Center and was struck by how much meaning is tucked into old photographs and artifacts, even when the full context is unknown.

For Wigglesworth, the value of an event like this is rooted in the way historians and communities understand their own past.

“The most powerful forms of capturing history for historians are in first-person narratives,” she said. “Whether that be through competitions like this, and the documentation of them for the future world, or through diaries or journals.”

She said those firsthand accounts give depth, dimension and empathy within a community that can’t be captured through timelines or statistics alone.

“This is a way of capturing primary sources,” she said.

Wigglesworth added that she is always curious about which voices might emerge, and she hopes the event opens doors for perspectives that are not always centered in local storytelling.

“As a woman, I’m always particularly interested in the female perspective on society,” she said. “I’m always fascinated by the female experience within communities.”

Stinson said organizers hope this is not a one-time gathering and that she would like to see the stories preserved in some form, including possibly being archived at the Hayden Heritage Center, which would ensure the memories shared Friday night live on.

She said the broader mission of the arts council and the Hayden Center is to create opportunities that bring residents together through different forms of art and expression while lowering barriers to participation and building connection during uncertain times.

“Story is everything,” Stinson said. “All we have at the end of the day are memories.”

She then added that preserving those memories can help carry Hayden forward, even as the landscape around it changes.

“Our stories are things that make communities a community,” she said.

More information on the Hayden Arts Council can be found at HaydenColorado.com/185/Arts-Commission.