George Masa: A Life Reimagined
by Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel
Recipient of the 2024 North Caroliniana Society Book Award
The North Caroliniana Society established the North Caroliniana Book Award in 2003 to recognize annually “the book that captures the essence of North Carolina by contributing powerfully to an understanding of the state.” Authors are eligible regardless of residency. However, neither authors nor publishers submit books; instead, a committee privately surveys all books published during the year and chooses the volume that it believes “makes a positive contribution and appears to have the best chance of standing the test of time as a classic volume of North Caroliniana.”
~ April 2025
On April 13, 2025, the 2024 North Caroliniana Society Book Award was presented to Paul Bonesteel and Janet McCue, authors of George Masa: A Life Reimagined, during the Annual Membership Meeting and Awards ceremony held in Pembroke, NC on the campus of UNC Pembroke.
More information about the Annual Membership Meeting, including award recipients, can be found in Number 66 of the North Caroliniana Society Imprints, titled A Woman of the Dark Water: A Pathmaker and A Wisdomkeeper by Dr. Jo Ann Chavis Lowery.
A video of the afternoon’s festivities will be available soon on the Society’s website.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Friendly and likeable yet quiet and retiring, George Masa made a dramatic impact within his adopted Southern Appalachian community and far beyond. Paul Bonesteel’s 2002 film A Life Reimagined: The Mystery of Georg Masa rekindled interest in the photographer. Then, in 2019, a chapter of Janet McCue’s Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography with George Ellison explored Masa’s unique friendship and powerful collaboration with Kephart in words and images. Now, after conducting groundbreaking research in the US and Japan, McCue and Bonesteel tell the fascinating story of an immigrant who endured scrutiny from the Bureau of Investigation, harassment from the Ku Klux Klan, and the collapse of the economy, his business, and his health – all while making it his life’s goal to champion conservation in Southern Appalachia.
Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Janet McCue is a writer and researcher with a life-long interest in the Smokies. McCue and her late husband Robert Kibbee began exploring the Great Smoky Mountains during extended backpacking trips in the 1970s; her interest continues today with her work on the writer Horace Kephart, the photographer George Masa, and her service on the Smokies Life Board of Directors.
For three decades McCue enjoyed a career as an academic librarian and administrator at Cornell University. She was the recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the USDA and was honored with awards for excellence in librarianship and professional service.
When she retired in 2013, she returned to her fascination with Kephart, collaborating with George Ellison on several publications related to the librarian turned woodsman. Back of Beyond: a Horace Kephart Biography was honored with the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award in 2019.
In January 2020, McCue and filmmaker Paul Bonesteel began work on a biography of the photographer George Masa. Kephart and Masa—one known for his passionate words, the other for his gifts with a camera—played significant roles in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Working with a team of researchers in Japan and on the west coast of the United States, Bonesteel and McCue conducted ground-breaking research on Masa. In September 2024, Smokies Life published the first comprehensive biography of the photographer, George Masa: A Life Reimagined.
“More walk, less talk” was one of George Masa’s mantras—one McCue has adopted as well. Living in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, she enjoys hiking and kayaking in the area as well as writing about the culinary and cultural riches of the Finger Lakes. She’s happy to be the mother of two thoughtful sons and grandmother to three young grandchildren, practitioners of Masa’s other well-known saying, “off your seats and on your feets!”
Paul Bonesteel’s passion for making films began with the family Super 8 camera at an early age. His upbringing in the mountains of North Carolina, love for the outdoors, music and storytelling led him to a diverse career of documentary filmmaking and media production based in Asheville, NorthCarolina.
He’s made documentary films since 1990, while also writing songs, running a production company, coaching little league baseball, growing vegetables, catching fish, playing golf and riding a bike and hiking as often as possible.
His films have told a variety of stories from photographer George Masa to writer Carl Sandburg. From the story of desegregating a golf course to a life changing bike journey across the United States by teenagers in 1982, the documentaries share a passion for craftsmanship and strive to inspire and illuminate important issues.