Reagan Boggs is living proof that there’s more than one way to tell a story. She does it through singing, songwriting, narrating audiobooks, and through analyzing data to find the stories Ballad Health shares with the world.
Reagan Boggs loves telling stories. She does it with numbers every day, as leader of Ballad Health’s Data & Analytics team in the IT department.
“All data does is tell stories,” she said. “It brings together data like how many people are in the hospital, how many people have been vaccinated – that’s a story.”
But when she’s at home, her storytelling takes a different form. There, she spends hours in her home studio, recording stories for audiobooks in her soft, soothing Appalachian accent. “I recently finished recording one called Revelator, an Appalachian sci-fi by Dale Gregory,” she said. “It’s a really good story and was just released.
“But it’s harder work than people think. For this one, I had to take vacation to do it and be online with the director while recording it for four straight days working 6 to 8 hours a day.”
Even closer to home, Reagan’s regional accent lends life to The Great Blue Hills of God, a memoir by Kreis Beall, co-founder of famous Blackberry Farm resort near Knoxville in Walland, Tennessee. No Names to Be Given by Julia Brewer Daily is another recently released narration project of hers.
Reagan began recording audiobooks for independent authors when she was laid off from a previous job with another company. Established publishers soon came calling, asking her to audition for their books. “At first, I thought it might be hard to find narration work because of my Smoky Mountain, Appalachian-style dialect, but most of my work for Penguin Random House has been because of it. They often want someone who has an authentic dialect from the region.”
Reagan has now narrated about 30 audiobooks, but it’s not the first time the public has heard her voice. In fact, the reason she has a home studio where she records audio books is because of her first love – music.
Folks in the region may have heard her singing one of the more than 100 songs she’s written while performing at Rhythm & Roots, fronting for Little Big Town, or on the “Mountain Stage” syndicated radio program.
“I’ve played music since I was 6 years old,” the Pound, Virginia, native said. “I grew up playing with my family and I learned guitar, banjo and mandolin from them. And then I also took vocal training.” In her younger years, she traveled and toured across the country with different bands and recorded albums. In fact, four of her six albums, along with single songs, are currently available on digital platforms such as iTunes, Amazon music, YouTube, Spotify and Pandora.
Reagan says the songs she writes come from poems she’s written about the region, people and relationships, and about things that are happening. She wrote and posted a performance of Cinders and Smoke on her Facebook page when wildfires engulfed Sevier County and Gatlinburg. When many of the mines closed several years ago, she was inspired to write Thank You (Miner’s Song) as a tribute to the coal miners.
Reagan says her songs are a mixture of musical styles. “It’s mostly Americana – blues, rock, bluegrass and some gospel, but I’d say my music is mostly country.”
So how did an aspiring country music star end up in IT at Ballad Health?
“Music is my love, but it’s difficult to make a living at it,” she said. “It’s hard to fund and takes a lot of travel and commitment being away from home. I found myself compelled to learn more IT-related skills out of necessity for promoting my music and band and handling the business side of it. I had to learn on my own how to build a website, create posters, do online advertising and take and edit photos.”
She found an interesting connect between music and internet technology.
“In both fields, there is constant change and there are always new things to learn. Music trains your brain to think in complex ways – your right hand and your left hand are doing different things all while you keep up with the lyrics you’re singing,” she said. “For the business side of music, you also have to keep up with a lot of things – the money, planning the logistics of tour venues, lodging and people you’re working with. This type of training helps with the way you use your brain in IT. So the two worlds actually go together for me.”
Armed with a bachelor’s degree in Internet Technology from East Tennessee State University, Reagan found that working in IT gave her financial and job security while freeing her to do music on her own terms. She can record audiobooks while she’s home with her son. “That’s important to me,” she said.
But she hasn’t given up on her music. “I still have a file of poems I’ve written on lunch breaks and will put them to music later.” Meanwhile, she continues a full life of storytelling – through data, through audio book narration and through singing and songwriting when it fits her schedule.
To find audio books Reagan has narrated, do an internet search for “Reagan Boggs, audio books.” Find her music on all digital music platforms, or listen to a sample at one of these links:
- Find out more about Reagan at her website: www.Reaganboggs.com
- Mountain Stage interview and performance: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZK9hK324A
- Link to Reagan Boggs albums: www.amazon.com/s?i=popular&rh=p_32%3AReagan+Boggs&ref=dp_byline_sr_music_1
- Link to album, Never Looking Behind: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QQTGAS/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
Do you know a Ballad Health team member whose actions or talents inspire you? Or, maybe you’ve witnessed acts of compassion worth noting or something that made you smile? Share your story here.
