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Since 2002, Geoff Fox has written about the offbeat and dynamic personalities that make Pasco County unique. He is now revisiting them, meeting new characters and sharing more stories. Email
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Catching Up With Banjo Lulu
Posted Sep 11, 2009 by Geoff Fox
Updated Sep 11, 2009 at 04:50 PM
Goats. Donkeys.
There are differences between the two animals, nuanced characteristics that the staff here at Everyday People can’t always identify.
Banjo Lulu, for example, has a donkey, not a goat, as you will learn if you watch the video below.
We decided to catch up with Lori Pegram, aka “Banjo Lulu,” because it had been more than a year since an actual visit – and no one should go that long without calling on the gregarious picker.
She and husband Randy have each survived health scares in recent years, but 2009 has been relatively kind to the musical couple; Randy is a civil engineer and bassist who once toured with the bluegrass band Sweetwater.
Until recently, Lulu, of Wesley Chapel, was a sign-language interpreter at the Caminiti Exceptional Center in Tampa, but her student graduated. Now, she’s taking on as many banjo students as possible.
A Scotch Plains, N.J., native, Lulu was a high school senior when she started playing the banjo. It was the same year she was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, which has impaired her hearing enough that she usually wears a hearing aid. Triggered by stress and intense weather, the disease, which also causes vertigo and nausea, is incurable.
The brutally hot summer months may have caused her symptoms to worsen, but you’d never know it by talking to Lulu.
She smiles and laughs as effortlessly as her fingers navigate a fretboard.
We imagine she always will.
(Tampa Tribune photo by Fred Bellet)
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Reader Comments
Por (Audrey Andrus Hebb) on September 12, 2009 (Suggest removal)
Well Lorna doone, I’m sure glad that I knew the difference ‘tween a goat and a Donkey…poor Cracker!..I am also so happy to have had our visit last month, 30yrs. is way too long, and i needed to see you and hear you play, and know that you are well and happy..Thank you and Randy for the hospitality offered, and if i was near-by i’d give the banjo another shot under your guidance..all the best my dear friend..Aud.
Suggest removalPor (Olive) on September 25, 2009 (Suggest removal)
Fun interview, and some great pickin’.
Suggest removal