Hee Haw plays to packed house
By Hudson Old
East Texas Journal Publisher
PITTSBURG, TEXAS – This wasn’t just another Saturday night, but showtime for a Hee Haw-styled community variety show that sold out the high school auditorium at $25 a seat, a testament to tradition. Consider the drawing power of the only district judge in the state dancing in a chorus line that evening, one of 21 scenes in a two-and-a-half-hour stage performance.
Unwilling to risk missing anything, everybody came back to their seats after intermission.
The script assigned the role of Saint Peter working the entry to the Pearly Gates to Shawn Kennington, the town undertaker, in Scene 4, “Buck at the Pearly Gates Borrowed Angels.” The same spirit put Joey Saxon centerstage as bartender at the Dusty Drawers Saloon, complementing Scene 7 in which Denise Reynolds, Patty Hood, Kenya Shane and Kristin Kilburn anchor a musical skit sending Mrs. Saxon to jail for stealing peaches, fodder for Sunday morning-after conversation at Emmanual Baptist.
“If you don’t understand all the jokes, it’s because you’re not from here,” said Harold Kennington, emcee.
“We’re not the type to repeat gossip, so listen close the first time,” sang those chorus line dancers who doubled as the “Rumors Girls” featuring Mary Collins, Lisa Crain, Deana French, Linda Grundish, Amy Kennington and the versatile District Judge, Angela Saucier, all of them armed with scripted lines in the imaginary world of Kornfield Kounty, the fantasy-for-a-night setting for the citizens of Camp County.
The people behind the plot know everybody in Pittsburg, population 4,335, where the audience came to its feet and joined in with the gospel quartet performance of the classic hymn, “How Great Thou Art.”
Brother, can we have a Hee Haw Cornfield salute?
This show’s written, directed and choreographed by mother-daughter duo Carolyn Anders and Macee Miller.
A stage veteran since he was 10 and began singing with his grandfather at the Thursday night Franklin Food Store Jam Session, Harold Kennington was assigned the emcee slot to fill the void left with the passing of Jerry French by Mrs. Anders, who had also assigned him his first production singing part when he was in 7th grade and she was the teacher who inherited the job of writing the show from another teacher, Ann Beane, who started what’s turned to community tradition as a fund raiser for seniors.
It was a made to order task during school years, something to fill left-over time in her school career days of teaching English and dance when not coaching girls volleyball, basketball, track and tennis or attending school counselor duties.
It’s now the top fund raiser for the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Museum. Milking it for the cause, Mrs. Anders, Brenda Barnwell and Linda Monts sold ads for printed programs destined as keepsakes listing the names of some 60 players.
A traditional favorite, Jerry French’s widow returned to play Minnie Pearl.
A poultry farmer and cattleman, Jeff Kilburn, a veteran fiddler of the Franklin Food Store Weekly Jam era, sang with Mrs. Kilburn and played behind a solo by lead guitarist Al Heard, a Pittsburg native who left town and established the company he retired from, Electrical Testing Specialists.
Music’s the heart of the show that draws him back as often as opportunity allows.
Every show, Carolyn Anders said, she calls Chris Reese, keyboards, and he calls in the band including Nick Robertson on drums, and Roy Dale Bray on bass guitar along with Mr. Kilburn and Mr. Heard on violin and guitar.
Contributors included Koe Wetzel, Cavender’s Boot City, the Cavender family, Cypress Bank, City National Bank, Pilgrims Bank, Piney Woods Animal Clinic, Herschel’s, Hefco, Parker Drug, Bunn’s Flowers and Gifts, Mayben’s Realty, McCormick Family Dental, Camp County EMS, Pittsburg Insurance, Brookshire’s, Walmart, Laura DeWoody Jewelers, Mayben’s Lifestyle and Appearal, the NTCC Whatley Center, Debbie’s Vintage Collections and Gifts, Tommy Lee Insurance, Glenda Lee, Farmer’s Insurance and Jonathan Fuller, Kathy Carpenter and Nicole Short with Century 21.
