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The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 17

Publication:
The Timesi
Location:
Shreveport, Louisiana
Issue Date:
Page:
17
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

SATURDAY, APRIL 22. 1995 SB Doonesbury BY GARRY TRUDEAU Shreveport Journal WNowLAuy. fi TUEYtMSWWBi UTILE LARL 6fW UP STRAIGHT AND STK0N6. net POM made. IT INTO HARVARD POP5! JUST SCORED 390 MILLION IN A HOSTILE TAxmfcR! Ha DAD! A SQUIRRIL IN THE MY 600...

HSZSTIU. Letters to the editor are welcomed at P. a Box 31110, in Shreveport U. 7113a or by e-mail at JoumalPffiaoLcom. The Journal's telephone number is 459-3365.

The Shreveport Journal, founded in 1895, is locally owned. It was published as an afternoon newspaper unul March 30, 1991. ftCALLYT The Shreveport Journal is now an independent editorial page published Monday through Saturday under an agreement between the Journal and The Times. Its views are independent of those on The Times editorial page. Journal editorials represent the opinion of the publisher and editors of the Journal Signed opinions are the views of the writer.

Publisher Charles T.Beaird Editor Jim Montgomery EDI70QIALG Ecological Environment should be a concern for all Still Says It's especially appropriate in a state like Louisiana, where much of our recreational life sends us to the outdoors to enjoy the land, water and air yet we often leave behind the very things guaranteed to spoil the environment we treasure. The drawing has been produced as a poster for tne 25th Earth Day, and is available free by writing to The TIIMW I "The longer I've been here, the bettor I like this planet. We might as well just stop beating it and get about healing the wounds no species but our own has inflicted," writes 82-year-old Sierra Club legend David Brower in his new book, Let the Mountains Talk, Lrt the Rivers Run. This folksy approach to the environment is something that has been missing from public discussion of late, due to cynical campaigns that paint environmentalists as anti-business hippie tree-huggers. There is a basic logic about the ecology that everyone can understand: it makes no sense for us to continue making our habitat unlivable.

The practice of waiting for a Love Canal or Exxon Valdez to happen and then getting involved has proved destructive and wasteful. That's the point of a massive campaign to boost grassroots participation and awareness, its start-off point being tomorrow's 25th anniversary recognition of Earth Day. The centerpiece of the campaign is a five-point Environmental Bill of Rights, which will be distributed nationally as a petition. It reads as such: I. Prevent pollution.

Every American is entitled to air, water, food and communities free from toxic chemicals. Government policies and regulatory standards must prevent pollution before it happens, expand citizens' right to know about toxics, "and guarantee protection for citizens, particularly for the most vulnerable among us infants, children, pregnant women and the elderly. II. Preserve America's national heritage, wild and beautiful, for our children and future generations. To Local The title, Earth Day, is so encompassing that we tend to forget: Protecting and improving our environment is really a matter of personal, local, specific involvement.

And, happily, the planetary concerns have found their way to our own corner of Northwest Louisiana. Among other things, there's now a recycling program in Shreveport whose success grows each year, providing incentives for each of us to learn that we can reduce the amount of trash and garbage we send to be buried in landfill dumps. -There are numerous programs in cities around the Ark-La-Tex dam i NAILED ZM! Pogo Twenty-five years ago, at the time of the first Earth Day, America's favorite philosophizing possum summed up the environmental concerns of the nation and the world: Standing in an Okefenokee Swamp that would have been naturally pristine had its human visitors not trashed it, Pogo declared, "We have met the and he is us!" for a balance between theater quality and theater economics. On Sept. 10, 1973, by then called the Barn Dinner Playhouse, it was purchased by Beverly Dinners, of New Orleans, becoming the Beverly Barn Dinner Theatre.

The new Beverly Bam operated exactly as before but instituted a policy of bringing big name stars, mostly from movies and television, to Shreveport. In its first year of operation, the Beverly Barn brought such actors and actresses as Dorothy Lamour, who starred there in Fallen Angels in January, 1974. Ann B. Davis of The Brady Bunch), appeared in ApriL 1974, in Three on a Honeymoon. August and September saw Abby Dalton in Everybody Loves Oval.

In October, November, and December, 1974, Virginia Mayo performed there in the play Butterflies are Free. But perhaps the longest remembered event associated with the Bam was also a tragic one: The death there in 1974 of actor Frank Sutton Carter" of the television series Gomer Pyle). Sutton, who was to have appeared in the play Luv, died of a heart attack in iff! tutorial YMttn Tim Greening Rodney Crunes EARTH DAY Wildlife, forests, mountains, prairies, wetlands, rivers, lakes, historic sites, urban parks, open spaces, oceans and coastlines are all part of our national heritage. III. End the giveaways of public assets, such as mineral timber, grazing and fishery resources.

End the subsidies for oil and energy companies. Polluters should pay to clean up the mess they create, no one has the right to use property in a way that destroys or degrades the surrounding community. We reject the idea that good neighbors must pay bad ones not to pollute. TV. Conserve America's natural resources by controlling waste, increasing energy efficiency and protecting against overuse and abuse.

Encourage sustainable technologies that meet human needs without destroying the environment. V. Get the big money out of politics. No more government for sale. Let's take our government back from the big campaign contributors and exploiters who control it today.

If you'd like to sign the Environmental Bill of Rights petition, call the Sierra Club at (415) 923-5653 and it will send you a copy to sign and return. Protecting the environment is not the domain of extremists; it's a concern we all share. As Mr. Brower puts it "We've got to rethink what we've been doing to the earth if we want to stay here. Nature bats last, and nature won't allow us to continue this abuse." Greening encouraging clean-ups, from Adopt-a-Road groups to Clean City contests.

And there is Shreveport Green, which not only fights littered eyesores but has tunneled thousands of dollars into environment-friendly landscaping of public areas as well as getting youngsters involved through its ShreveCorps program. Not that the battle is ever truly won. The city will still chop down an ancient cypress tree for a project instead of designing a way around it, while homes and businesses also have much yet to learn about saving our natural gifts. But for all those who work to bring Earth Day home, teaching us that we can do better by our environment, we offer a Journalpage rose. playhouse to Buddy and Betty Rags-dale, who continued to operate it in partnership with the Reglins.

The Barn was set up for "three-quarter-round" performances, with the audience seated on three sides of the stage. The 125 by 85 foot theater had a large kitchen and serving area and a removable stage. Patrons arrived, were served their dinner from a portable buffet, then sat down to dine. The buffet was then removed and the stage set up in its place. The show then began as the meal progressed.

For years the Bam's cuisine was highly regarded by many of its regular patrons. At its beginning, it was part of a dinner theater circuit, with shows supplied by Theater Productions, a professional though not Actors Equity group from New York. Within the first year, the theater pulled out of TPI ana began presenting shows staged by actor-director Bill McHale, who also supplied productions with mostly Equity actors to dinner theaters in Dallas and Little Rock. There were several such changes through the dinner theater's years of operation, as various owners worked It Best Pogo Fan Club, 51 Squaw Rock Road, Danielson, CT 06239. Pogo, the creation of the late Walt Kelly, may be gone from the nation's comic pages, but the message he delivered still says it best: We are responsible for our environment; we can choose to be its enemy or its friend.

And it will return to us, in kind, the choice we make. Nalwrs Show and had managed radio stations in Louisiana and Kentucky. The Bam Door was owned by a group of three investors: Lloyd Trout of Lake Charles; Judge Lewis R. Sleeth of Jena; and James M. Satterfield of Forrest City, Ark.

Unfortunately, the Bam Door did not prove successful, either, and within a year was also closed. After its theater productions proved to be not cost effective, the Bam Door became home to a cabaret show. In time the building would house a short-lived country and western night club. In 1980 it became home to the newly organized University Baptist Church. On Aug.

8, 1994, an early morning fire destroyed the old building. What few ruins remained after the fire were demolished, leaving the bare site upon which the new building of University Baptist Church now rises. The legacy of that site is part of the heritage of Shreveport's cultural and entertainment past. Admittedly, it is part of our recent past, but that makes it no less significant. Eric J.

Brock is a local historian. Church Site Was Once a Dinner Theater his dressing room just prior to the start of the show. I distinctly remember as a child how my family came home early from the theater that night, stunned at the event. The play was, of course, canceled. Almost six years earlier, less than a week after the theater formally opened, another death had occurred at the Barn that of actress Paula Pelcher, a performer in Barefoot in the Park, who also died of a heart attack in her dressing room shortly before show time.

An emergency call went out to local leading actress Anna Chappell 30 minutes before curtain time; she went onstage at 8 p.m., script in hand, and received a standing ovation at the curtain call. The Beverly Bam's star policy proved too costly and in January, 195, the theater closed its doors. Only three months later, however, it re-opened under new ownership and new management as The Bam Door Dinner Theatre. The Bam Door was managed by William H. Robinson, a Shreveport native who had run a similar theater in Louisville, Ky.

Robinson had also been a scriptwriter for such television shows as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Jim THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST It ERIC J. BROCK It hardly involves ancient history, but the new construction underway at the University Baptist Church site 9000 East King's Highway brings to mind the old Barn Dinner Theatre, a longtime landmark which stood at that location, for many years known as Hart's Island Road. The Barn was just that: A big red barn which was remodeled into a theater in the late 1960s. On Nov. 6, 1968, it opened under the name of The Barn Dinner Theatre with a production of Barefoot in the Park.

Original owners were Charles R. and Patricia Cross Re-glin in partnership with Cal Braddock. Braddock later sold his interest in the ST.

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