Abilene Reporter-News from Abilene, Texas • Page 23

McM to Start Alumni Award Program DR. VERNON SPENCE educator, historian JO CRUTCHFIELD career of service McMurry College's annual homecoming activities this year will feature a special musical show and the initiation of a new and continuing program of "Distinguished A i awards. "As the Reservation Turns" is the title of the homecoming show, scheduled for performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

The show, according to student directors Frank Coachman of Killeen and Diana Riddle of El Paso, is basically a dramatization of a typical day at McMurry. The show will Include music by Chicago, David Gates, the Carpenters, Olivia Newton John, Stevie Wonder and Bread. ALSO PART Of the show will be a selection of electronic music recorded by Dean Brown and Dr. Macon Sumerlin, McMurry professor. The distinguished alumni awards will be presented to three McMurry alumni who have excelled in their professions and given outstanding service to McMurry, their community or their church.

This year's recipients are Mrs. James (Jo) Crutchfeld of Abilene, Dr. Joe E. Boyd of and Dr. Vernon Spence of Fairfax, Va.

The honorees will be presented at the annual alumni luncheon Saturday'in the J. W. Hunt Physical Education Center. Homecoming activities will officially begin Thursday, Oct. 31.

with the traditional torchlight pep rally on the front steps of Radford Building, and concludes Saturday, Nov. 2, with a homecoming dance. Thursday night activities will also include dorm Halloween parties after the pep rally Award Recipients Have Productive Careers and a special Halloween movie, "You'll Like My Mother," in Radford Auditorum. THE CONSTRUCTION of Tepee Village will begin at 7 a.m. Friday in Wan Wahtay- see Park.

Tours of the village by area school children are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and run throughout the day. Friday evening's homecoming show will include the Pinning of ths Colors and the naming of Chief McMurry, Reservation Princess and the class favorites. Finalists for Chief McMurry include Charles Alexander of Ore City, Steve Chappell of Koswell, N.M., and Cliff Gardner of Tahoka. Reservation Princess finalists are Debbie Baker of 1342 Vine, Judy Burt of 1941 Poplar and Kay Me- Menamy of Shallowater.

The annual bonfire, will immediately follow the coronation, and an i a -s a scrimmage by Coach llershel Kimbrell's basketball team will complete Friday evening's activities. All day activities scheduled for Saturday include the visitation of Tepee Village and open house in the dormitories. Club reunions are also scheduled for various times that day. THE FRESHMAN parents' reception is set for 9:30 a.m. in Jay-Rollins Library, fol- lowed by the second performance of the homecoming show and the alumni luncheon.

Coach Don Newsom will pit his Indians against Austin College at 2:30 p.m. in Indian Stadium. Winners of the Tepee Village competition will be announced during Hie half-time ceremony. The homecoming dance will begin at 9 p.m. Saturday night to conclude the weekend's festivities.

Tickets for the homecoming show may be reserved at McMurry Student Government Office. Cost for Friday night's performance is $2 for adults and $1 for students. Saturday tickets cost 51.50 for adults and $1 for students. Three College graduates of very different careers will be honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards by their fellow McMurry exes during homecoming festivities here next weekend. Dr.

Vernon Spence is a distinguished educator, historian and author of one of the most important Texas biographies of recent years. Jo Palmu- Crutchfield has accomplished many things for both her alma mater McMurry and for The United Methodist Church. Joe E. Boyd Jr. has become vice president for business and hospital affairs at the world famous M.

D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute. At first glance the three share only one common factor: all are still engaged in productive careers with many a of accomplishment promised ahead of them. They will be here for the presentation at the 11:45 a.m. alumni luncheon in J.

W. Hunt Physical Education Center on Saturday, Nov. 2. Boyd did not embark originally on a hospital administrator career. He studied at Miami (Tex.) High 1934-36 before graduating from a a High in 1937.

HE ENTERED McJIurry an interest in the arls JOE BOYD JR. hospital administrator and graduated in 1941 with a BS in music education. He was caught up in World War and became an aviation cadet in 1941, eventually rising to lieutenant colonel. Boyd then entered the University of Texas graduate school and emerged with an MBA in accounting. He tc- came a certified public accountant.

He had tried his hand as a music teacher at Mozelle High School at Fisk for a semester in 1941. He tried college teaching as an assistant professor of accounting 1948-50 at Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette. In 1950 he became a branch college auditor for the University of Texas. He joined the UT System Cancer Center in 1952, rising to vice president for administration by 1969 and his present post in 1972. He has held many positions with professional associations, such as a member of the House of Delegates of the Texas Hospital Association and secretary of the Greater Houston Hospital Council.

He is also active in accounting associations. AT M. D. ANDERSON, Boyd is a member of the President's Advisory Council and chairman of the Administrative Committee among other posts. Mrs.

Crutchfield, whose husband is Dr. James W. Crutchfield, was saiutatortan for her class at Loraine High, and second in her 1937 graduating class at McMurry College. At McMurry she was secretary of the Chanters and a member of the girls' quartet, as well as student assistant to Gypsy Ted Sullivan Wylie. She was also president of Lay Activity and a member of Alpha Chi as well as the Mathematics Club.

She went on to do graduate work at Columbia University where she was a member of the chapel choir, followed by a year's fellowship at New York University. She taught music at McMurry College and at Jersey City State Teachers College. She has also taught mathematics at a San Francisco junior high school and worked for the Nurse Procurement Office of the San Francisco Red Cross. A MEMBER of St. Paul United Methodist Church, she has sung with the choir all her adult lite and often taught Sunday School.

She helped establish the Locust Community Center in 1955 and has since served continuo on its coordinating board. She has taught there and is now treasurer at Locust. She is also now a member of the Council of Ministries and on the administrative board of the United Methodist Women. Aside from many other local church offices held over the years, at the conference level she served as a member of the Health and Welfare Board 1968-72. She was a member of the Actors in 'Saints' Stranded in Time "A Company of Wayward Saints," to be presented by the- Abilene Theatre, Friday through next Sunday, will be played in "Commedia dell-arte" (comedy in art) style, according to the director, Bob Straus.

The language of the play is contemporary, however, he said. The play will be given in the Abilene High auditorium at 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The Sunday performance will be given in the Civic Center auditorium at 2 p.m. THE SHOW is being moved from AHS to the Civic Center on Sunday to correspond with the West Texas Arts and Crafts Sale going on there.

Straus believes that some persons may wish to attend both the fair and the play. Tickets are priced at $2.50 for adults and $2 for students. They may be reserved by phone at 672-1319, or purchased at the door at time of performance. "The actors are supposedly stranded in time." Straus explained. "As far as we can tell, they've been performing their same show for generations ever since the Renaissance, when i a dell'arte was born in Italy.

"But now they're in Abilene, Texas, doing their show again. "THE SHOW has modern correlation; they talk about what is going on today. But they're the same stock Corn- media dell'arte characters -and the characters fit in as today as they did in time past," he said. "Just as the original Commedia dell'arte players took basic situations in life and wove them into a plot, the actors are doing it now, in this play." Stock characters consist, first, of the two lovers, Isabella and Tristano (played by Jana Hurst and Bob Moore.) The plot usually revolves Mrs. Niblo's Art Show Will End Today final day of the art Show by Evelyn Niblo at the Abilene Fine Arts Museum is Sunday, with museum hours from 1 to 5 p.m.

Chet Kwleclnski, museum director, reports that the show has been well attended and received. Over 800 visitors have Signed the guest book for the show, he said. Paintings by Bill Rakocy, curator of the El Paso Museum of Art, will be the next to open Sunday, Nov. 2. founding committee for Sears Methodist Center, serving as secretary-treasurer at Sears 1965-70.

She is now Sears treasurer and bookkeeper as well as a Sears trustee. IN CIVIC life she was a member of the first Abilene Philharmonic a and helped organize Abilene Civic Music in the 1940s. She has also held office or worked with Abilene Woman's Club, Abilene Women's Forum, Abilene Shakespeare Club, the Dental Auxib'ary and others. Mrs. Crutchfield has been very active in McMurry Alumni Association, serving twice on its executive committee.

She lists several McMurry teachers as major influences: Mrs. Robert B. Wylie, Jennie Tate, Julia Luker, Beth Myatt, Vernie Newman and Dr. Dan Dodson. Vernon G.

Spence graduated as salutatorian of his high school class in 1942 on his native Tangier Island, and then attended the University of Virginia before being drafted. He later came to McMurry where he graduated with a BA in history. He was War Whoop editor and student council president. He added his MA at Southern Methodist and eventually his PhD from the University of Colorado. HIS WIFE, the former Wands Smith of Loraine, also has a McMurry degree in English.

Spence taught at McMurry 1948-50 and 1961-69, eventually becoming. head of McMurry's social science division, lie joined the faculty of George Mason University at Fairfax, where he was invited into the graduate faculty, served as a charter member of the University Senate and other activities. He has also taught in Virginia, Colorado and Texas public schools. Dr. Spence has published historical essays in the Montana Historical Quarterly, the West Texas Historical Assn.

Yearbook and other learned journals. His best known writing is in his "Colonel Morgan Jones: Grand Old Man of Texas Railroading" published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1971. Cfie PAGE ONE ABILENE, SUN. MORNING, OCT. 27, 1974 SECTION Stoff Photo bv John Be VIRGINIA HARDY AS NEUROTIC MATRON IN "NIGHT WATCH" sees corpse from her window in next ACT play, a chiller 'Night Watch' Role Quite A Change for Mrs.

Hardy When "Night Watch" opens at Abilene i Theatre, Wednesday, Nov. 6, for a two-weekend run, Virginia Hardy will be playing a role quite different from the many others she has done at ACT. The leading character of "Night Watch," Elaine Wheeler, is a neutoric, wealthy New Yorker who seems on the verge of being driven to madness by a calculated series of events. Quite a different role is this, from her last role as the overbearing, but loving, mother in "Gypsy," and the glamor- come-lately nurse, Stephanie Dickinson, in "Cactus Flower." The gentle Laura in "Tea and Sympathy" was another type, and the self-assured, though rejected, queen in "Lion in Winter" was yet another. As though that were not Mrs.

Hardy has played the amusing Mary in "Mary, Mary," the puzzled motiier in "The Subject Was Roses," and any number of other roles. In "Night Watch," Mrs. Hardy must not only exhibit fright, but she must confuse and mystify the audience. "Night Watch," was written by Lucille Fletcher whose dio series, "Suspense" long chilled the blood of Americans. It was adapted from her famous i "Sorry, Wrong Number." The emotionally unstable young matron fancies she sees corpses in the empty tenement across from her living room window.

Elaine's husband, played by Avery Todd, doubts her visions. And her close friend, played by Nancy Bojarski, seems to be even a closer friend of her husband. John, the husband, tries to discourage Elaine's fantasies and to persuade her to visit a Swiss clinic for the mentally ill. The author leaves it to the audience to decide whether John is really concerned about her health, or if he is trying to get her out of the way so he may spend time comfortably with her attractive friend. Two of the performances of Ulis ACT play will be benefits; tile Thursday, Nov.

7 show for the West Texas Rehabilitation Center; and the Thursday, Nov. 14, show for charities of the Abilene Policeman's Auxiliary. Proceeds from half of each ticket sold will go to these organizations on those nights. Individual ticket prices are $3.50 for adults and 52.50 for students and children. Seats may be reserved by phoning ACT between 1 and 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

A solo show by Ardis Hood will be exhibited in (lie ACT lobby (luring the run of "Night Watch." Curtain will be at 8:30 p.m. Abilene Theater Season as Fine as Any Staff Photo by John Best BOB MOORE AND JANA HURST IN "COMPANY OF WAYWARD SAINTS" as the lovers, Isabella and Tristano, stuck "Comedia dell' arte" characters around the lovers and their by William Baack, and Scapi- nag, played by Sandy Wilno, the acrobat, played by lingham; and Ruffiana, Max Hurst, represent such outside forces. So also do Columbine, the problems. Isabella's father, Pantalorie, played by Straus, is usually depicted as a comic, miserly tart, played by Shelley Nash. "All the situations are timeless," Straus said.

"1 tell my students that Abilene is offering as fine a theater season as you can find in many cites much larger. There's a play every weekend until Christmas, except for Thanksgiving weekend." So says Bill Overton, Cooper High drama director. "Theater here Is convenient easily available, and inexpensive." he continued. "And the theater is good," he said. "I've a feeling that the three colleges have set themselves up to do major scripts.

I'm impressed with what they are doing." IN FACT, the. chance of seeing a good play here is better than seeing a good movie," he added, smiling. And he added one final comment, "The productions are so nicely spaced throughout the fall." It is just happenstance that SETHI THE SC the community theater, the repertory theater, and school shows fall pretty much on different weekends this fall. Each school worked around its own schedule, as did the other organizations. But with the local ballet companies, with the Philharmonic, and with the shows coming to town (Fiesta Folk- lorico on Nov.

17), a full season of live entertainment is indeed offered. And Overton's point about price of tickets is well taken. BUT NOW the big question arises: are these shows Overton is talking about good enough that city and area people would want to attend them, as though they were professional productions without the danger of being embarrassed by being thrown into an amateurish production? The answer is and this our people are coming to real- character, carrying "all the troubles of the world on his back." The learned doctor or lawyer, Dottore, played by Winston Whitt, puts on all the airs of knowledge, but he often doesn't know all that he is supposed to know. braggart soldier, usually turns out to be a coward. Ralph Burkey is portraying Capitano.

THE characters usually assist in the plot as outside forces either blocking the way of the lovers, or causing some event to occur. In this case, Harlequin, the company's manager, played Artisans to Demonstrate Skills at Arts, Crafts Event If a person wishes to bring that heirloom spoon of Grandma's to the West Texas Arts and Crafts Sale, either Saturday or next Sunday, an artisan will make it into a ring for him. Or if he wants to have a caricature drawn of himself or his friend, another artist will do that. At the fourth West Texas Arts and Crafts affair to be held at the Civic Center Saturday and Sunday, not only will goods be offered for sale, but the fabrication of some will be demonstrated. DONNA FALCIONI has told Mel Neese, superintendent of the Recreation Department of the City of Abilene, which is sponsoring the fair, that she will make rings from any piece of flatware which is brought to her except the knife.

Baby spoons are favored for rings, she said. Arnie Vail, the caricaturist, says appropriate credits can be printed to the purchaser's specification on each caricature. Eighty exhibitors will be showing their arts and crafts. HOURS OF the sale are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday, and 11 a.m.

to 6 p.m., Sunday. Admission is 90 cents for adults, and food and drink will be available. Lowell Nash, photographer from Buchanan Dam, will offer color a of scenes, animals, and flowers, all the pictures framed and ready for hanging. Eugenia Robertson favors pastels for her paintings, but will probably exhibit works in varied mediums. Eugenia L.

Bourn, candlemaker, has sold her candles coast to coast, in such leading stores as Marshall Field in Chicago, she wrote Neese. Jack Chisholm painter of western art, wrote Neese that he was happy to return to this show since he "enjoyed taking part in the show so much last March." HENRY L. Wallace is a full-time professional artist whose work is sold through galleries in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Mr. and Mrs.

James Sanders of Marshall will both be showing their work; he, pottery, and she, woven items. Neese said that the show will be what he calls a "quality show, with renowned artists and craftsmen." "This is not a show of hobbyists," he said. ize the shows arc that good. All three colleges are selecting plays now with public appeal not the experimental drama of colleges a few years back. And what they are offering are shows as good as you'd see at summer stock anywhere.

And some as with "La Mancha," just past the equal of, or better than, most professional productions. In some parts of the country, citizens have come to think of productions at the schools as part of their theater schedules. If our local school and civic companies keep up the of shows which they've produced so far this year, we, loo, can feel we have a full theater season." BUT WHILE we're talking theater, let's face the Big Deficiency in our theater program. It's children's theater. We- don't have enough children's theater.

Such theater must be done by trained, actors. It must- be drama which is worthwhile in every way for the children. And they should not be de-" nied such drama. Only by experiencing good theater will children appreciate it as adults. Children can learn much from the drama of the classics, written by thoughtful persons, living and dead.

The i theater fKcs several such productions a year. But we need more. Hew about the high school! and colleges helping in 'this area? Or someone..