All of Kathryn Tucker Windham’s stories are true. They might be a tad embellished, but they’re definitely true stories.

“My father always said, ‘You can’t improve on the truth,’ ” she said during an interview before the Azalea Storytelling Festival that concludes this morning.

Of course, in a Southern tradition, Windham’s best stories come from her family.

“I read years ago, one of the marks of a Southerner is we’re not embarrassed by our relatives. We trot them out and tell stories about them,” Windham said.

The 90-year-old from Selma, Ala., has been telling stories all her life. She started her career as a police reporter for a Montgomery newspaper.

“I covered police court, where basic justice is handed out and where the real people are. I wouldn’t take anything for my experiences in police court,” she said.

It wasn’t long before she was promoted to cover the state Capitol, where she says jokingly that she covered “another kind of criminal.”

It was later, during World War II that Windham became even more familiar with her home state. Working as publicity director for war bond sales, she spent the night in every one of Alabama’s 67 counties.

“Some things you never forget,” she said.

While most of her stories are memories of her life, Windham constantly finds new material.

“Most of it’s on me. It’s amazing what it’s like to be old,” she said.

Recently she was calling in a prescription refill and every time she dialed the number she got a strange sound. She was getting irritated with her longtime drugstore before she realized she’d been dialing the refill number instead of the telephone number.

With a mind full of tales, Windham could have a regular repertoire for her events, but she never has a notion what she’s going to say.

“I refuse to be first” to go onstage at storytelling festivals, she said. “Because whoever goes first will spur a memory for me.”

Many of her stories - about family, Alabama ghosts and everyday life - she repeats. Sometimes she wonders if she tells those favorites too often.

“I told my daughter one day, ‘I’ve got to get a new set of stories.’ She said, ‘If you’re going to hear Frank Sinatra sing, do you want to hear a new set of songs?’”

That’s when Windham realized people don’t get tired of hearing the good songs or the good stories.

Last summer, Windham celebrated her 90th birthday with a few hundred close friends.

“The whole year I was 89, I invited everybody to my birthday party and they all came!” she said.

Two bands showed up - The Dill Pickles and her dentist’s New Orleans-style band - and a comb chorus that serenaded about 800 people who came to celebrate with Windham. She provided the plastic combs and refreshments - Moon Pies and Nehi soft drinks.

“I called the Moon Pie factory in Chattanooga to order the Moon Pies. The salesman and I had a nice chat. I told him I wanted 1,000 Moon Pies and I wanted them fresh,” she said.

He assured her the Moon Pies - the regular ones, not any of the triple-decker fancy ones - would be baked in the morning and shipped that day. Then he mentioned that his father-in-law was a minister in south Alabama and he wondered if she might know of him. Turned out, his father-in-law officiated at Windham’s marriage.

“You know, that happens to me all the time,” she said.

— This year’s 13th annual Azalea Storytelling Festival will conclude today with free sacred storytelling from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Callaway Auditorium. Coffee and doughnuts will be served from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

Sherri Brown can be reached at sbrown@ lagrangenews.com or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 240.