News

Huntingdon Mayor Dale Kelley and Lee Warren, The Dixie's new executive director, display the lobby and auditorium finishes to be used in the performing arts center.

Lee Warren was astonished, on her first visit to Huntingdon, to see The Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center taking shape on the courthouse square. She will assume the position as executive director of the center effective Saturday, July 18.

"Those of us in the arts are always fighting to keep arts in school budgets," she said. "Then I drove into this little city and was, 'Oh my!' We spend so much time fighting to keep the arts and to drive into this community and see a performing arts center being constructed--and the mayor and council being the ones driving it--was so refreshing."

Huntingdon Mayor Dale Kelley was just as pleased to discover Warren, who recently moved from Fort Worth, Texas, to join her husband, Dr. Steve Warren, who last fall accepted a teaching position with Union University in Jackson.

"We went for knowledge and experience," said Kelley. The position was recently established by the mayor and council in order to prepare for the center's opening this fall. Construction is expected to be complete in September.

Warren's resume includes, most recently, her position as interim executive director of the Youth Orchestra of Greater Fort Worth. Other employment dating to 1979 includes assistant manager for administration and community engagement for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association; managing and artistic director of the Oklahoma Arts Institute; director of music programs and recruitment for the Oklahoma Arts Institute; director of education for the Louisville Orchestra; dean of the Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colorado and other positions at the school including dean of students and admissions director and director of student services; administrator and houseparent at St. Thomas Choir School; administrative assistant at the Aspen Music Festival and School; opera stage manager and administrative assistant at Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England; opera administrator and stage manager at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and assistant to the Opera Department director at the Eastman School of Music.

"I think having that breadth of knowledge is something the Dixie Carter Center can benefit from," says Warren, envisioning activities at the center to include not only theatrical performances but music, poetry, visual arts, dance, and symposiums.

She said she intends the center to provide cultural opportunities to the entire region while focusing on "two major areas of excellence: performance and education."

"We will have professional performances and we will also hopefully have children's programs. It would be wonderful if we had a (county-wide) children's theatrical and choral program in conjunction with the schools," she said.

She envisions as well Dixie Carter/Hal Holbrook young dramatist and artist competitions, speech competitions, and more, with the intention of "getting people involved in the center."

While she has yet to meet the center's namesake in person, she says she received a phone call from Dixie on the 4th of July.

"We had a lovely conversation," she said, acknowledging she had been delighted to discover Dixie was from (McLemoresville) Tennessee. Dixie graduated from high school in Huntingdon.

Warren said the center's affiliation with Dixie gives it a "forward motion" that will enhance its offerings to the community.

"Designing Women was a great series and I also love her cabaret singing," she said. "She's a wonderful artist--Hal (Holbrook) also--we need to preserve their artistic heritage here."

Holbrook, Dixie's husband, has been active in helping to plan the design and function of the facility.

Warren hopes her sister, Samantha Sizemore, who works for the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, will assist in establishing an exhibit featuring Carter within the confines of the performing arts center. Other attractions, aside from the artistic, could include a gift shop and restaurant.

"It's a wonderful place for day training; I can see that happening so easily," said Warren. "I want it to be a fun place to come experience something new and see something exciting."

With her first day on the job falling well before the completion, Kelley said, "We're going to find her some temporary accommodations."

One possibility he mentioned is the Huntingdon Historical Museum, located on Main Street near the court square, an idea that feeds Warren's love of history and her desire to "learn as much as possible about the region so we can develop programs appropriately."

The center itself retains a bit of Huntingdon's historical past. Originally planned to retain the façade of three former buildings, some of which is retained in the lower levels of their many-layers-thick brick walls, the idea was scrapped when part of the wall collapsed.

Not to be outdone, however, history was preserved when the bricks were cleaned and reused in the impressive facility, the interior of which will be embellished with ample woodwork using beautifully refinished, old English chestnut lumber from the century-old buildings.

Warren and Kelley revealed on Wednesday, July 6, the lobby and auditorium finishes for the center, combining a heavy, rust-colored curtain and green solid and patterned carpeting with a gold tin tile ceiling and tweed-covered seats.

Incidental to Warren's plans for the center is economic development. She sees the centers as "absolutely vital" to the attraction of business and industry into the town of Huntingdon as well as the entire region.

"We've got to be able to offer arts as part of the package," she said, observing that incoming workers desire to have easy access to symphonies, theatrical events, and other offerings for themselves as well as their children, notwithstanding the income that could be generated by center programs.

Additionally, she sees adult education and volunteerism as a very important component to the success of the center.

"As the population ages it's important to keep the mind sharp and education is important in that," she said. "And we will need volunteers in addition to employing staff. If anyone out there would like to volunteer in the arts they need to think about us."

In speaking of her plans for The Dixie, she said her husband had seen a great deal of vision at Union University, as well, during his year-long tenure.

"It's exciting to be part of something so visionary--we're long-term planners--Union and the Dixie really suit us; we're looking forward to being a part of two great communities," said Warren, who plans to commute from Jackson to the center. "I'm looking forward to working with Union University and Bethel College. We want to be a supporter of the entire community and work with children especially."

She recalls her own interest in the arts began in childhood. Born in Millidgeville, Georgia, to parents who originally hailed from Hazard, Kentucky, 47-year-old Warren was raised in Northboro, Massachusetts, about 45 minutes from Boston.

Her father was a Southern Baptist pastor who worked with the Home Missions Board for 31 years, 20 of which was spent as executive director of the Northeast Baptist Association.

She grew up in music and theater, singing and performing.

"My very first experience in art was as a four-year-old," she reminisces. "My mother took me to see Swan Lake in Boston; I'll never forget the ballerina in her black tutu."

Her own performances included playing Mary in a church pageant and Dolly in her high school play, "Hello Dolly", interspersed with many other children's theater productions.

In college, however, she determined her personality was best suited for arts administration, besides, she acknowledges, "One performer in the family is enough." With no formal arts administration degree available at that time, her formal major is in theater with a minor in education.

After college, Lee married Steve, whom she had met in high school. The two ventured to Rochester, New York, where he pursued his advanced degree from Eastman and she assumed the role as assistant director of the opera department.

"He's a tenor," she smiles, speaking of her husband, who last year began teaching at Union University in Jackson. Lee had lingered in Texas to allow the couple's only child, David, to finish high school. The 18-year-old is now a student of his father's alma mater at Eastman.

Lee gained her own education at Emerson College in Boston where she studied theatre, TV and radio communications.

From there she progressed to the Aspen Music Festival where she eventually became dean. "That's where I gained most of my education," she says, recalling the Aspen summer music festival in Colorado. "I got to know a lot of young performers who have gone on to incredible careers."

Her experience was enhanced by her tenure as general manager with the Oklahoma Arts Institute, which so impressed her that she declares, "I firmly believe every state should have an 'Oklahoma' Arts Institute."

She most admired the institute's summer children's programs in acting, choir, ballet, modern dance, photography, painting, and poetry.

"It's incredible what children can do..." she says enthusiastically. "God doesn't just make musicians; he's still making all the different artists, and that's important because you don't know what's going to touch each child, and there's so much they can do with their lives in art."

Carroll County commissioners Monday approved a $16.4 million budget and a property tax rate of $1.06 per $100 assessed value, a rate that has remained unchanged for 12 years. Voters in Carroll County approved a $10 increase in the wheel tax earlier this year. At that time, the commission indicated no property tax rate increase would be necessary for several years. Additional receipts from the added wheel tax are estimated at $240,000 annually.

Carroll County Mayor Kenny McBride said all elected officials and department heads, working together, made the 2005-06 fiscal year budget process easier.

Commissioner Billy Smith thanked department heads and elected officials for presenting reasonable budget requests to the Budget Committee. The budget includes four additional county employees, a three-percent pay raise for employees, and no additional property taxes, said Smith.

In other business, the commission approved resolutions to:

* construct a bridge over the Rutherford Fork of the Obion River;
* authorize the Carroll County Highway Department to perform work for the city of Clarksburg, city of Atwood and town of Huntingdon. All costs are to be reimbursed;

* add Cardinal Drive, Chickadee Lane, and Meadow Lark Trail to the Carroll County Road System;

*appoint Vince Taylor to the Carroll County Electrical Board;

*approve a list of budgetary appropriations to nonprofit agencies including: Rescue Squad, $6,000; Gordon Browning Museum, $4,000; McKenzie Memorial Library, $8,000; Carl Perkins Center, $1,000; West Tennessee Hearing and Speech, $2,000; McKenzie Senior Citizens Center, $200; Atwood Senior Citizens Center, $200; Huntingdon Museum, $400; Carroll County Museum, $400; McKenzie YMCA, $1,000. Total is $23,200.

*honor Wilburn Mitchell upon his retirement for 23 years of service to the Highway Department;

*honor James Scott upon his retirement for nine years of service to the Highway Department.

Following the meeting, commissioners enjoyed cake in celebration of Mayor McBride's fiftieth birthday.

CLICK HERE FOR PRINTS

Photos are mailed directly to you. Don't see what you're looking for? Give us a call at 731-352-3323.

70-year fade life
35 mm quality