The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 47, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 20, 1991 Page: 4 of 20
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THE CUFTON RECORD WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 20. 1991. PAGE 4A
Directors Of Largest BCCFA
Theatre Production Profiled
CLIFTON — When the Bosque
County Conservatory of Fine Art*
■BCCFAi presents the musical adap
tat ion of Charles Dickens' A Chrtst-
ma* Carol on Dec 5-8, it will be the
largest production ever produced by
the BCCFA Theatre in the group's
lO-year history There will be 43 chil-
dren composing the cast alone, and
almost as many adults (mostly par
entsi will serve behind the scenes in
roles ranging from director to
prompter
The largest scope of this joint effort
between the BCCFAs Education and
Theatre branches requires the partic
ipation of not only seasoned veterans
of the BCCFA Theatre, but new-
comers who are lending their skills to
the BCCFA for the first time. Among
the play's many invaluable volun
teers are director Roberta Denton, as-
sistant director Evelyn Hubbard,
muscial director Joy Journeay, and
director of choreography Laurie
Taylor
Laurie Taylor is a newcomer not
only to the BCCFA. but to Clifton as
well. She and her husband. Dr Jon
Taylor, moved to Clifton in June. Her
husband serves as pastor of Clifton's
First United Methodist Church, and
Mrs Taylor is a third-grade teacher
with Clifton Elementary School
Though new to Clifton, neither of the
Taylors are new to the performing
arts
Mrs Taylor was born and reared in
Baton Rouge. La She has always
professed a love for dance and music
and played trumpet as a member of
both her elementary and high school
bands Her stage credits as a
dancer actress include roles in Jesus
Christ Superstar. Celebrate Life, and
GodspelL She attended Louisiana
State University where she majored
m Education She met her husband in
Dallas while he was attending semi-
nary and the couple married in 1981
They are the parents of two sons,
Jonathan, 5, and Christopher. 13
months Jonathan is appearing in A
Christmas Carol in dual roles as a
townsperson and as Tiny Tim. f
Taylor has taught virtually every
age child from first through eighth
grades. Her teaching jobs have been
in Layfayette, La., Dallas, Graham.
Arlington. Lorena. and now, Clifton
Though Taylor said she thinks of her
self as a city girl, she and her family
love Clifton and its "friendly people.”
When the audience looks over the
program for A Christmas Carol, it will
be their first time to see the word
"choroegrapher listed on the credits
Taylor says she is happy to see the
BCCFA producing its first musical,
and is glad to be part of it She learned
of the Theatre through Mrs Denton
and Bob Fuller, both members of the
BCCFA Theatre and her husband's
congregation She says she has en
joyed working with the children of A
Christmas Carol ”1 like working with
children anyway, ’ said Taylor, “but
especially in creative areas like dance
or theater ”
Taylor has the background and edu-
cation for her volunteer role in the
children's production She’s had nine
years of dance classes, was a tw trier
for four years in both high school and
college, choreographed in high school,
and has taught private twirling les
sons for four years and group twirling
classes for two years She spent five
years as a twirling choreographer for
the LSU Leadership Camp, and as a
teacher has directed and
choreographed elementary school
productions of The Wtz. Salute To
Broadway, and Cnristmas In Mother
Gooseland.
Taylor's husband also as a rich
background in music and voice He
will be helping behind the scenes on
A Christmas Carolus well, where he
can be found upstairs helping in the
light and sound booth. The BCCFA
and Clifton welcome both Dr. and
Mrs Taylor to the Conservatory and
to Bosque County. They both possess
talents which are sure to enhance to
BCCFA now and, it is hoped, for many
years to come
Another newcomer to the BCCFA is
Joy Journeay of Clifton, who lends her
musical talents of a lifetime to the up
coming production Journeay, whose
idea it was to bring the first musical
to the BCCFA stage, will serve as mu
sical director and pianist for the popu
lar Christmas classic. Journeay s
work on the production began three
months ago, after the play was cast
She has worked with the children for
DIRECTOR Roberta Denton (standing) goes over lines with
young actors as assistant director Evelyn Hubbard points out
stage positions during a recent rehearsal of the upcoming BCCFA
Children’s Theatre production of "Scrooge.”
—Staff Photo By W. Loon Smith
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three months, teaching them the
numerous tongs featured in the play
before they actually set foot on stage.
As with the other directors of A
Christmas Carol, Journeay has qtent
her life aa a teacher of children She
possesses patience to spare as she
directs the show’s more than three
dozen children m situation* that
would no doubt find the directors of
the BCCFA s Adult dramas throwing
m the towel She loves children, and
her love for them is apparent
Journeay is a native of Boeque
County and Clifton, who returned
only last year after 35 years as a
teacher of choral music for grades kin-
dergarten through high school She
lived in Clifton from age three and
graduated from Clifton High School
in 1952. She attended the old Clifton
Lutheran College for one year after
graduation before leaving for Baylor
University in 1963. She ■ the da ugh
ter of Mr and Mrs Hugh Trotter of
Meridian
She graduated from Baylor Univer
sity in 1955 with a bachelor's degree
in Music She did post graduate
studies at Lamar University and the
University of Houston She began her
long career as a music teacher in
1955, teaching first for the Orange
I.S.D. She taught 15 years in Houston
before moving to El Paso, where she
taught for another 12 years She spent
eight more years in Carrollton, where
she ended her teaching career in 1990,
and returned home to Clifton
Among Journeay's many credit* aa
a choral director of students, the
shows she remembers most fondly as
Fiddler On The Roof, and the opera
Amahl And The Night Visitors. “I
miss working with the kids," said
Journeay. “But my age just got to be
too much for the hours involved.”
Though she has seen several produc-
tions of the BCCFA Theatre, A Christ-
mas Carol is Journeay's first time to
help out on a show.
Aside from her work with the
BCCFA, Journeay busies herself with
various interests, including garden-
ing. church work at Clifton's First
Baptist Church, and attending perfor-
mances at Baylor Theater. She alao
serves as a substitute teacher for the
Clifton I S D She has two grown
daughters, and an 11 year old grand
daughter. She says she's happy to be
back in Clifton, and to be helping the
BCCFA present its first musical. The
BCCFA is equally happy to have Joy
Journeay on board Without her con
siderable talents in music and and
theatre, the BCCFA s first musical
might have been another 10 years in
the making
Serving as assistant director on the
production is BCCFA Theatre's oldest
member. At age 87, Evelyn Huhhard
is the undisputed grande danse of the
local stage. She has spent a lifotimt
in the theater accumulating more
credits than perhaps every member of
the BCCFA Theatre combined Thi-
remarkable woman exhibits a con,
mand for direction and a visible enei
gy and excitement for her work
seldom found in those half her age
Her love for children and theater arc
evident in her every word and move
ment. Though amall in stature and
soft of voice, when Miss Hubbard
talks, children invariably listen.
Evelyn Hubbard ia a native Wa
coan. She began attending the live
performances at the old Auditorium
in Waco at an early age. “That’s
where I got my love of theater,” she
recalled. “As a little girl, instead of
playing with dolls, I wanted to get all
the neighborhood kids together and
direct them in a show." Though Hub-
bard acted in college productions, she
says she’s always preferred directing
to acting.
She received her bachelor's degree
in Education from Baylor University,
and her master's degree from Baylor
in Speech and Drama. She did poet-
graduate work at Northwestern
University in Evanston, 111., where
she specialized in children's theater,
creative drama, acting, and directing
Hubbard taught young people
speech and drama a total of 59 years,
from 1925 to 1984. She spent most of
those years in Waco, teaching at
North Junior High, where she direct-
ed two major theater productions each
year. In addition to her 43 year career
as a public school teacher, she worked
each summer as a drama counselor
from 1948 to 1984 at Echo Camp in
the Adirondack Mountains of upstate
New York. Amazingly, there Hub-
bard directed a different children's
production each week throughout
summer months.
“I directed literally hundreds of
plays using every kid in the camp,"
Hubbard recalled. “I like children be-
cause of their enthusiasm and imagi-
nation. I like children for their
willingness and eagerness to do the
best they can at whatever they can.”
Ironically, this woman, who has
spent her entire life working with
children, never married and had chil-
dren of her own. But aside from her
own students, she was blessed with
many nieces and nephews. Hubbard
moved to Clifton to be nearer her
great-nephew, Dr. Terry W. Murphy,
doctor of internal medicine at
Clifton's Goodall-Witcher Hospital
She has lived since 1984 at Rainbow
Village next door to the BCCFA,
where she is retired, but far from in-
active. She claims to have seen every
production presented by the BCCFA
Theatre.
In 1990, when A Christmas Carol
director Roberta Denton set out to
direct the BCCFA’a first-ever chil-
dren’s theater production, she asked
Hubbard to lend a hand. Hubbard
served as assistant director of the first
children’s theater production, Hansel
and GreteL Now, the two women
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Evelyn Hubbard (seated) helps Am-
ber Patterson (left) and Alec Scaff (center) go over their roles in
the upcoming BCCFA Children’s Theatre production of
"Scrooge’’
—Staff Photo By W Lson Smith
repeat those same rotes st the current
BCCFA children’s theater production
Hubbard is impressed with the qual
ity of the BCCFA offerings, and she
has seen the best thaater has had to
offer in the past 80 years She said the
traveling theaters presented in Waco
years ago were top-notch. It was there
that she saw Katherine Hepburn in
The Philadelphia Story, and Helen
Hayes in several productions, includ
ing Mary of Sctoland and Mrs
McThing. During summers in New
York, she saw as many Broadway
productions as she could afford.
Among countless others, Hubbard
witnessed the original stage produc
tions of South Pacific with Mary Mar
tin, and My Fair Lady with Rex
Harrison and Julie Andrews. She says
she has seen “hundreds and
hundreds" of plays, and never tires of
them. She prefers drama, comedy, and
musicals equally well
As long as her health permits, Hub-
bard can be found among the au
diences of the BCCFA Theatre,
applauding their latest efforts.
Though she's no longer able to take
to the stage herself, she continues
helping the BCCFA in any way she
can. While the children of A Christ-
mas Carol are richer for having
worked under her direction, they and
their parents are probably unaware of
the years of experience, dedication,
and love for children and theater that
this tireless woman has given so
many in her more than 65 years of
directing.
Entertaining and education are
what Hubbard has done, and con-
tinues doing, best. Her life is a histo
ry of credits to prove it, and the
BCCFA is honored and fortunate that
Miss Evelyn Hubbard made Clifton
her retirement home, and that she
continues to entertain, educate, and
inspire others as the BCCFA's most
-cnior volunteer
Roberta Denton of Shuler's Point
'Lake Whitney) is another senioi
volunteer of the BCCFA who is mak
ing a difference in the growth of the
fine arts organization. Mrs Dentbn
credits the Conservatory with giving
her the confidence to face life again
following the death of her husband
A Christmas Carol will be Denton's
second time to direct a BCCFA chil-
dren's theater production In fact, it
was Denton's vision that children's
theater come to the BCCFA at all. She
joined the BCCFA Theatre in 1988,
just months after the death bf her hus
band of 43 years, Wyley Denton.
Though she hadn't acted since her
youth, she auditioned for and won the
role of Martha Webster in the BCCFA
comedy, Arsenic and Old Lace. Her
character and that of her stage sister,
portrayed by friend Ellen Henderson
of Clifton, would spike elderly men’s
wine with arsenic to spare them the
pitfalls of growing old
“It was a great experience," Denton
recalled of the role. “My husband had
just died, my children were grown,
married, and moved away. I felt no
body needed me anymore. The
Theatre was the perfect outlet for
me."
Denton subsequently worked back
stage on a summer melodrama, but
all the while concentrated her efforts
on persuading the BCCFA to let her
realize her dream of directing the
group's first children's theater. In the
summer of 1990, Denton got her wish
when she served as director of Han-
sel and Gretel, and says the ex-
perience remains her favorite in the
BCCFA
Denton was born in Nashville,
where her interests in theater began
at an early age. She played the title
role of Cinderella at age seven. She
attended Baxter Seminary her final
two years of school, where she was ac
tive in the Drama Club, Glee Club,
and Debate Team. “I was nothing but
a ham,” said Denton.
After high school, she attended Ten-
nessee Technological University. In
1943, she took her first teaching job
at a small, two-room rural mountain
school where she taught primer
through fourth-grade. The school had
no bathroom and water came from a
hand pump and heat from a pot-
bellied coal burning stove.
"Sometimes I had four kids and
sometimes 10 or 12, depending on the
weather,” Denton said “All I had was
a piece of chalk and chalkboard, but
that’s where 1 learned to teach ”
Denton then went west to attend
the University of Washington at Seat
tie. In addition to receiving a degree
in Sociology, she took flying lessons
and received a pilot's license. She
studied social work in graduate school
before moving to Texas in 1945 to
work as a social worker for the Travel
ers Aid Society in Galveston. That
same year, she met and married her
husband, an auto dealer.
She and her husband had three
sons Robert Denton is Superinten-
dent of Schools at Dripping Springs;
Gary Denton, is a science teacher in
Duncanville. Her third son died at age
20 following a lengthy illness She has
five grandchildren.
Denton spent a total of 21 years
teaching children. She taught primar-
ily fourth and fifth grades in Gal
veston. In 1956, she co-directed The
Wizard OfOz with 60 children. After
her son became ill and home-bound,
she went back to school to receive cer-
tification as a home bound/hospital
bound teacher She worked in this ca-
pacity for six years, including a
semester as a daily teacher of social
studies on a Houston television
station.
Denton retired from teaching in
1976. She and her husband moved to
the Lake Whitney area in 1978
without ever having seen the lake
before
“We had one child living in DeSoto
and one in Temple,” Denton said. “We
wanted to be closer to our grandchil-
dren and my husband had to be on the
water after living on the coast all his
life. We just found the lake on a map
and here we came.”
In addition to the BCCFA, Denton
divides her time between several civ-
ic groups and church work at Clifton's
First Methodist Church. But directing
children is what she enoys most about
her sometimes harried retirement.
Denton says she is proud to have
brought the first children’s theater to
the BCCFA, and equally proud to
direct the BCCFA’s first musical with
A Christmas Carol.
“Children are my favorite people,"
says Denton. “They’re honest; they're
sincere; they respect you; and they
want to please.”
Mrs. Denton's numerous other be
hind the scenes volunteers for A
Christmas Carol and the 43 children
composing the show's cast will be
pleasing audiences with four perfor-
mances of the Christmas musical. Per
formances times are 7:30 p.m. on Dec.
5, 6, and 7. A Sunday matinee will
AUS1C DIRECTOR Joy Journeay (left) goes over a musical
number with young actor Tyler Dunn in preparation for the
BCCFA Children’s Theatre production of "Scrooge.”
—Staff Photo By W Leon Smith
end the show s run on Dec. 8 at 3 p.m.
Tickets are $4 for adults, and S2 for
ages 17 and under. Reservation* may
be made by calling the BCCFA at
675-3724 or the Theatre Box Office at
675-CAST A complete lading of all
cast members and crew member! will
follow in a later story
Bakeless Bake Sale
Topic Of Study Guild
CLIFTON - The Study Guild held
their monthly meeting on Nov. 12 in
the home of Dorothy Zimmerman
Sixteen members and three guests.
Maebelle Blewett, Terry Anderson,
and Elaine Khind, attended
The Guild president, Roslyn Dahl,
presided at the business meeting All
members contributed to a Bakeless
Bake Sale. Margaret Denton, project
chairman, suggested the December
project be the selection at Santa's An-
gels. The Study Guild members ap-
proved
It was decided to bring Christmas
gifts for residents of Clifton Lutheran
Sunset Home to the December meet
mg Members also decided to send spa-
cial Christmas gifts to the two Study
Guild members in the Clifton Luthe-
ran Sunset Home, Oleta Christenson
and Emma Mae Nelson.
From January through May, each
member is to bring food for the local
food bank to the monthly meetings.
Helen Putney read a devotional en-
titled “Joy of Service.” Carrying on
the year's theme of Women in Texas,
Margaret Denton presented a book
review of Love Is A Wild Assault writ
ten by Elithe Hamilton Kirkland.
Refreshments were served by the
hostess The next meeting will be held
on Dec. 10 in the home of Billye
Johnson.
La Posada Set Dec. 7
COPPERAS COVE - The annual
La Posada is scheduled for Dec 7 at
Olgetree Gap Valley in Copperas
Cove.
La Posada is the reenactment of the
journey of Chriat's birth.
The proceaaion will march down the
valley's hills carrying lighted candles.
Actors will herd sheep, perform as an-
gels, wisemen, and Mary and Joaeph.
There will alao be a choir.
The public is invited to be a part of
the procession march.
Gates open at 5 p.m. and once La
Posada begins, no vehicles will be ad-
mitted There is no admission charge,
but barrels for canned good donations
will be set up.
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Pharmacist’s
discovery may
end obesity
WASHINGTON - After solving the
problem of his own obesity, a phar-
macist, now director of National Die-
tary Research, may have discovered
the solution for others with the same
problem.
Dr. William Morris, pharmacist,
inventor and author has discovered a
natural food tablet, aptly named Pood
Source One, that replaces some of the
calorics normally obtained from food.
Food Source One replaces high calo-
ric fats with other natural food ingre-
dients with little or no caloric value
so you can lose weight without giving
up all your favorite foods, as ex-
plained in NDR's Lifestyle Mainte-
nance publication, available where
Food Source One is sold. “The se-
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in decreasing the amount of food you
cat, but in controlling the fat," says
Dr. Morris.
According to Dr. Morris, weight
loss results while using Food Source
One will depend on how many pounds
a person needs to lose. However some
overweight people arc experiencing
extra-ordinary results with rood Source
One. A Metairie, Louisiana nurse
lost 71 pounds. She stated "I never
had to sacrifice the foods I dearly
crave!" "Food Source One is very
easy and anyone could do it" says a
Niagara Falls, New York woman who
lost 26 pounds and 15 inches. "The
results arc great’" she added.
Food Source One is available at
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Smith, W. Leon. The Clifton Record (Clifton, Tex.), Vol. 96, No. 47, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 20, 1991, newspaper, November 20, 1991; Clifton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth788144/m1/4/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nellie Pederson Civic Library.