Kyra Holt, who runs the Songwriter School at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, first frolicked on the concert site as a 10-year-old. Her dad bought the farm intending to turn it into a wildflower paradise. Instead, a folks festival bloomed and has continued to do so every August (this year’s festival is Aug. 8-10).

You may wonder: Is that “s” in “Folks” a typo? Absolutely not. Holt explains, “It’s meant to address the universality of what we do here. Every tent is welcome in our campground.”

And a big, tuneful tent it is.

I’m a huge fan of folk music, with or without the extra “s,” so when I moved to Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest – with dozens of performers, an idyllic venue and a foothills location – was high on my to-groove list.

My wife and I were there last August to throw down a blanket, open our cooler and soak in the stream-side vibe and sunshine. About four thousand other folkies joined us. We hung out on the lawn in front of the mainstage, but many music fans kicked up dancing dust to the right of the stage or cooled their ankles in the St. Vrain River. Their happy, rambunctious kids were everywhere. A high red cliff loomed above the lazy river, bouncing banjo licks into the universe. It’s every bit as striking as Red Rocks in Morrison, but with less big-name preening and lots more hippies.

Just the way I like it.

If that evokes visions of festivarian muck and chaos, let me assure you: the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest is what Woodstock would have been if IBM had run it. The grounds are immaculate, the rainbow of music lovers joyful and well-behaved, and food vendors dish out delicacies on reusable plates with metal utensils. Sweet volunteers guide you to recycling basins, and your falafel plate serves the next folkie.

Most surprising of all, the bathrooms stay orderly and odor-free, with short lines. Business schools ought to study this place. If the organizers can make Woodstock-by-the-St. Vrain work, they can do anything.

Last year our big draw was the folk-harmony group Darlingside. Hearing the band bring my playlists to life felt like a blessing.

Still, after Darlingside left the stage to a roar, I felt a pang of regret: I’d hoped they would encore with their version of “The Parting Glass,” a traditional toast to friends long gone – the perfect capper.

I wandered off for a beer. Near the food court a golf cart beeped politely behind me, loaded with the entire band. I caught a player’s eye and blurted, “I hoped you’d finish with ‘Parting Glass!’ It would have been perfect!”

He paused. “You know, we’ve never done that as an encore. Maybe we should.”

As the cart rolled away I heard them discussing my suggestion. If you see Darlingside encore with “Parting Glass,” you owe me a beer.

Craig Ferguson bought the farm from Kyra Holt’s dad and raised his family – and the Folks Fest – from the farmhouse in the middle of it all. The festival itself was born in a Chicago conference room, where Ferguson, then a lawyer avoiding “a real job,” launched an international troubadour festival featuring acts from Russia and Ireland. The event eventually migrated to Lyons and the singer-songwriter format that fills today’s stage.

He rattles off alumni with pride: Don McLean, Josh Ritter, Ani DiFranco and Brandi Carlile. And that guy named Jackson Browne, who said, “This is what I had in mind when I was about 15 or 16 and I thought it would be really great to travel around and play festivals. This was the festival I was thinking of.”

Another luminary is Mary Gauthier (go-SHAY), who debuted as a performer and became a sought-after instructor in the festival’s songwriter school.

“I’d never taught before,” says Gauthier, whose song “Mercy Now” has been my anthem through the troublesome 2020s. “The songwriter school opened a door in my mind – not only that I could do it, but that I should do it.”

Every year a new generation of folkies arrives in Lyons, eager to connect with one another, the landscape and their musical futures. “I don’t want people to sing their diary,” Gauthier says. “Navel-gazing is boring. I want people to go deeper than the personal, to find the universal. That’s where we meet – where melody, metaphor and fiction converge to point to truth.”

Yes, she’s that kind of songwriter, and the Folks Fest is that kind of event.

Those truths land in Lyons every summer because of the people looking up at the stage. “It’s the ideal audience for someone like me,” she says. “People who read books, listen to NPR and have a discerning sensibility different from the dive bar. It’s not political. It’s that the Folks Fest crowd shares a love of language. The grass in front of the stage is full of them.”

She pauses, then adds, “It’s one of the better stages in the whole world.”

And it’s right here in Colorado. Maybe you’re one of the word-loving, pluralistic folks who belongs at this festival, too?