Ron Daise, a Gullah Geechee culture and heritage interpreter, will be a featured speaker at Unity Myrtle Beach’s Sunday service beginning at 11 a.m. on October 24 at Unity Myrtle Beach, according to Reverend Margaret Hiller. His message will include thoughts on how to stay faith-filled beyond all appearances of world events and uncertain times from the Gullah Geechee perspective.

Daise, a native of St. Helena Island, is also an author, performing artist and educator. His productions and recordings about Gullah aspects began after the publication of his first book, Reminiscences of Sea Island Heritage, in 1986.

Since 2004, he served as vice president for creative education at Brookgreen Gardens, in Murrells Inlet, earning the 2019 South Carolina Governor’s Distinctive Achievement Award. He is known by many as “Mr. Ron” from “Gullah Gullah Island,” the Nick Jr. TV’s award-winning children’s program of the 1990s. Daise also is a former chairman of the federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission and currently serves on the Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies Advisory Board. He is featured in a video exhibit about Black language and speech at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. A graduate of Hampton Institute (now University) in Hampton, Virginia, Daise and his wife Natalie reside in Georgetown, South Carolina, and are parents of three adult children.

UnityMyrtleBeach.org. See ad, page 21.