A musician who has performed with several big name acts in her career. A volunteer and community organizer who has also performed as one of those musicians in that act. A community theater director whose program attracted 100s of kids for productions each year. A business woman who exudes excitement in promoting Mount Vernon and Lisbon. One of the women integral to Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre getting its start. And a teacher who started an orchestra program at Mount Vernon Schools that lasts on to this day.
Those were the honorees at this year’s Uptown Theatre Honors presented Saturday, Oct. 23, in uptown Mount Vernon’s First Street Community Center.
Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group and the volunteer group the A-Go-Gos organized the sixth annual event, with skits and song and dance numbers to honor these recipients in what they dubbed the “Year of the Women.”
The honorees this year included Janet Ault, Patty Ankrum, Dixie Collins, Karla Steffens, Ann Booth and Barb Colehour.
DeeAnn Rexroat of Cornell College spoke about Janet Ault’s impact on the Mount Vernon and Lisbon communities, with the creation of the orchestra program at Mount Vernon Schools.
Ault, who had a degree in history from Grinnell College, got trained in the Suzuki method of playing violin at the Precil School of Music and brought that to the Mount Vernon community.
Ault then added the Mount Vernon Orchestra to the music offerings at Mount Vernon schools, starting at the high school and then moving the program to middle school and elementary school grades.
“There were countless dollars of her own money and time used to scout for instruments for elementary and middle school to play,” Rexroat said. “I was fortunate that my daughter Rehenna had Ault as a teacher, as I learned just as much as Rehenna did in her lessons.”
Ault retired from teaching in 2000, with many students being named to All-State Orchestra because of the program. For Ault, however, the goal was always on the other talents orchestra taught her students – the work of collaborating, when to lead and when to follow and an appreciation for classical music.
Trude Elliott spoke about Ann Booth’s nomination for the honors.
Ann Booth and her husband Guy moved to Mount Vernon in 1960, and Ann Booth received her degree in architectural history.
One of her first projects was creating a needlepoint off King Chapel, something a professor asked her to do. Instead of just creating the individual needlepoint, Ann created the pattern that could also allow people to create their own needlepoint design.
Booth started Hall Closet, a sewing group that met weekly for years. In 1982, she started creating shortbread that would go along with the sewing materials and patterns. In 1989, she opened a shop where Lincoln Wine Bar now sits, with that shortbread being one of the products that was always on sale. In 1990, that shop moved to First Brick down the block. Along with her shortbread, First Brick was a retail shop that offered several gifts and artist works from the community.
“One of the things that anyone new to Mount Vernon will encounter in stopping at First Brick is the way Ann will promote the other businesses that are down the road in Mount Vernon and Lisbon,” Elliott said.
Along with all of the business accolades, Ann also helped start the extraordinary women scholarship with more than $32,000 being handed out since the scholarship was started. She’s also served on the parks and recreation team, served on the Chocolate Stroll committee and played in Young at Harp for a number of years.
Steve Maravetz presented the accomplishments of Patty Ankrum and Dixie Collins. Maravetz has been married to Collins for more than 25 years. He’s known Ankrum as long as he’s known Collins, and said that he was informed when he married Collins, Ankrum was going to become part of his life as well.
The duo played in the band Black Sheep for a number of years, recording two albums over the course of the band’s career. The duo were marked with their spontaneity.
Collins and Maravetz moved to the Mount Vernon community in 1994, and Ankrum shortly followed.
Ankrum has taken on causes, including helping to expand the plants that will help monarch butterfly populations increase.
Amy White spoke about Karla Steffens and the creation of Odyssey for the Young at Art in the community.
Steffens brought her experience from running a Children’s Theatre School in Chicago from 1993 through 1999.
The first performance of Odyssey Theatre happened in Heritage Hall in Lisbon in spring of 2002.
Future productions would move to Mount Vernon’s district auditorium, and the program grew from a handful of students to more than 100 students for each production. And students weren’t just involved with onstage antics, they learned technical skills like building sets, running lights and microphones or managing the stage and actors if that’s what they were interested in.
“She helped give many students the confidence to speak on stage,” White said.
Along with her for many of the ventures were her own three kids – Grace, Zak and Luke — who each have carried that passion for theatre into their lives moving forward, helping with programs at Mount Vernon and Lisbon as well as Odyssey.
Even in the midst of a pandemic and completing her graduate studies in social work, Steffens directed a show that went out digitally. Steffens is now working as a counselor at Cornell College.
Laura Werkman spoke about Barb Colehour. Colehour was one of the creators of Mount Vernon-Lisbon’s Community Theatre.
Colehour had the idea to do a show to pair with the Kolache Days festival nearly 42 years ago. The cost for the production was $500 for the rights of the show. Colehour took out a loan to get the $500 and then set about casting the show Oklahoma!
“Luckily, that first production made more than that $500 loan, and Barb went on to be involved with more than eight productions here in Mount Vernon and Lisbon,” Werkman said.
Colehour moved to California for a number of years, and eventually returned to Mount Vernon and Iowa.
If there are recommendations for future honorees for the Main Street Honors program, Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group director Joe Jennison said the group would like to hear them.
Six honored at Uptown Theatre Honors 2021
November 4, 2021
SYSTEM
This year’s honorees included: Karla Steffen, Janet Ault, Patty Ankrum, Dixie Collins, Barb Colehour and Ann Booth.
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.