A 2019 family festival held at Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview has become a point of contention in the race for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, where Democrat Jamie Ager, the farm’s CEO and co-founder, is running against Republican state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom.
The farm hosted a six-hour “Fantasy Festival at the Farm” on May 4, 2019, a public event that drew about 1,500 responses on Facebook. Promotional material invited attendees to “put on your fairy wings or Vader helmet” and advertised interactive games for all ages, including a “Dragons, Princesses & Knights Game” and a “Frog Lord Game,” along with a costume contest for ages 13 and up and a separate “Youngling Costume Contest” for children 12 and under. Tickets were priced for children, with day-of admission set at $13 for those 13 and older, $9 for children five to 12, and free entry for children four and younger.
Among the festival’s guests was the Beer City Sisters, Abbey of All Souls, a local group that at the time described itself as a “Fully Professed House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” — a charity and performance organization whose members dress as nuns. In an April 11, 2019, Facebook post, Hickory Nut Gap wrote it was “honored to have the Beer City Sisters” join the event, calling them “altruistic nuns” whose mission was to “promote and celebrate diversity, social awareness, universal joy, and eradicate the stigma of guilt.”
The group’s own materials from that period described members using names such as “Sister Domina Trix,” “Sister Helen Bedd,” “Sister Beandra Fulkenwider” and “Sister Anita Felching.” The Beer City Sisters, founded in July 2016 by Sister Margarita del Encanto and Guard Chester Cub after relocating from Jacksonville, Florida, also promoted a recurring “Drag Comedy Show” at a Asheville bar held every third Sunday of the month.
Ager, a fourth-generation farmer who runs Hickory Nut Gap with his wife, Amy, has centered his campaign on his identity as a Western North Carolina farmer, including a television ad highlighting monthly barn dances the couple hosts on the property. He is running in a district former President Donald Trump carried by nearly 10 points in 2024.
Federal Election Commission records show Ager’s campaign made a $5,000 contribution to Blue Ridge Pride during the third quarter of this year. The organization describes its mission as building “a vibrant, inclusive community where all LGBTQIA2S+ individuals in WNC experience belonging and live with dignity, equity, hope and joy.”
Policy positions and family background
Ager has supported universal healthcare and renewable energy policy, telling an interviewer previously that “there’s no question” renewables are necessary to “get climate change under control.” North Carolina electric cooperatives have estimated the state’s renewable-energy mandate could add hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs over 15 years, and French Broad EMC, which serves Ager’s home area in Buncombe County, charges customers a “NC Renewable Energy Recovery Fee.” Ager is endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund.
Ager’s family has deep roots in North Carolina politics. His grandfather, Jamie Clarke, served in both the state House and U.S. House; his father, John Ager, served in the state House from 2014 to 2022; and his brother, Eric Ager, was elected to a neighboring state House district in 2022. Ager attended Warren Wilson College, where he met his wife, who now works there as executive director of strategic ventures, reportedly earning $136,000.
Ager will face Balkcom, a two-term state representative who describes herself as a “Henderson County farm girl” with family roots in Western North Carolina going back eight generations. Balkcom was selected to run after Rep. Chuck Edwards ended his reelection campaign amid a House Ethics Committee investigation.
Ager has been endorsed by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). He has said immigration has “benefitted this country in so many ways” and has backed consideration of a pathway to citizenship for long-term undocumented residents.
