Woody Williams was an entrepreneur before the word was even invented.  He is the Godfather of the Crow-Luther Cultural Events Center project as he was instrumental in bringing the love of movies to this town...a long time ago.

Although there was an earlier movie theater in Eads during the 1920's called the El Cinema that played silent movies...the real history of this project began in the late 1930's when Woody Williams opened the Plains Theater in the Bentley Building... the southern-most building in the Crow-Luther Center.  According to Jack Garner who is a history buff in town and who played his own role in the development of the Plains Theater, "When World War II arrived in everyone's lives, 'Theater Woody" (ever the opportunist) changed the name to the Victory Theater.  With the War ending, Williams was able to complete the present theater and named it the Plains Theater."

Williams went all out in his creation of the Plains Theater.  He purchased the Star Garage, built in 1916, and promptly set out making the Plains one-of-kind in the area.  The first thing he did was to hire the Boller Brothers who would turn a large garage into a premier movie theater.  According to Wikipedia, the "Boller Brothers, also spelled as Boller Bros., was an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Missouri which specialized in theater design in the Midwest of the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Carl Heinrich Boller (1868–1946) and Robert Otto Boller (1887–1962) can be credited with the design of almost 100 classic theaters ranging from small vaudeville houses to grand movie palaces.

The Plains Theater was opened on August 1, 1947 and played Vigilante's Return.  Williams promoted the Plains in many ways by offering such gimmicks as "Bank Night" and free Christmas movies.  On September 5, 1947 Williams had a stroke of genius (and of luck) when Ken Curtis, of Gunsmoke fame, made an appearance at the Plains Theater.  "He was pleasing to the real cowboys and those that were "want-to-be."  Festus was also a member of the Sons of Pioneer professional singing group.

It cost a mere $1.20 for adults and only $.50 for children to go to a movie in the 1940's.  Many people in the town and surrounding areas still remember going to the Plains to watch serials such as Tarzan or  Dagwood & Blondie that would be shown over a three to four week period in installments....the predecessor to the modern-day TV dramas and comedies.  Westerns with John Wayne and dramas starring Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor captured their imaginations.  They also remember the popcorn that came from the same machine we use in the Plains today.

Williams managed the Plains Theater until his health failed in the early 1960's and it was sold to the Crow Family, starting a new chapter in the Plains Theater saga.  But during the years of the late 1940's and the 1950s Williams made sure the Plains Theater was the place to be and the thing to do every weekend....every season....throughout the year.  The tradition and memories he created was the catalyst of saving Theater Woody's theater today!

It's official!  One of the main goals the Crow-Luther Cultural Events Center board wanted to reach when we started in 2006 was to form a theater performance group and host dramatic productions on our stage in a brand new auditorium.  In fact, our original plans includes a retracting big screen that can roll up when not being used to immediately create 160 extra square feet on the stage.  In addition, the back garage space has been pegged in our architectural plans to be a Green Room space with dressing rooms, audition rooms, and rooms for prop and costume storage.  Well those things haven't happened just yet....but we'll get there.

I know we'll get there because we now have a catalyst to force change.  I refer back to the main thing we wanted ... a community theater group that would be run professionally and bring excellence in cultural events to our rural, isolated area.  The Crow-Luther Players has been formed and we have found a guy that knows what he's doing and has a passion for theater.  He's a local gem named Phil Splitter and he has a large group of people around him who love theater too and are just as passionate!

I'm just the idea lady who asked one day at a ballgame, "Hey Phil could you direct a Christmas play for us at the theater?"  Phil is interested but asks me questions I have no idea how to answer.  Questions like, "Do we have a script?" "Do we have any people who will act or work in the production in other ways?" "Can I schedule an audition call?"   Being the optimist that I am...my answer was of course, "Ummm...yes...yes...and yes!"  Yikes! 

But it turns out we did find a script..."The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!".....and we do have people who can act and are willing to work on a play production!  Amazing...in a small town where there has not been much on the cultural side of life for, well, "forever."  But, knowing the people I'm dealing with in our less-than-cultured town, when it came down to advertising for the "audition call" I called it an "organizational meeting" instead.  This lessened the intense fear of never having had gotten up in front of people to "show 'em what ya got!"  Turns out I know my people as there were some panicked faces in the theater on Sunday when we all met to "organize."  Some asked Phil, "Do I have to audition?" and luckily we have a real professional at the helm because he made it fun and way less nerve-racking than I ...and they.... thought it would be. 

And now, low and behold, we have a cast of 27 actors, 15 stage and productions people, and even a handful of baby angels that didn't audition but, hey, they are cute and we figure we'll start them young to build our future performers.  We even have a little five year old girl who went through the auditions and so-captured Phil's heart that he has written in a special part just for her! 

See what happens when we put ourselves out there?  My motto is usually, "jump in and hope you can swim!"  I learned how to swim early and so far I have been able to avoid the sharks and drowning....well, the drowning part may get me sooner or later.

---Swimming with my head just above water ... it's about at my chin!

They Needed a Place to Hang Out ---
They Decided It Would Be The Plains

The Crow-Luther Cultural Events Center (CLCEC) was formed in 2006.  It was part of a plan conceived and presented by a class of Eads High School students who decided in 2004 that they were going to save the Plains Theater that had been abandoned and empty since 1983.  These students were motivated by a need to have a place to go and something to do in a town where their options were quite limited.  After two years of work that involved research, collecting stories from the hey-day of the Plains, and talking to other communities about their theaters, the Class of 2006 called a community meeting and invited as many of the decision-makers as possible including the County Commissioners, Town Council, School officials, and other prominent citizens.  They all came to the Plains where the kids had cleaned it as best they could and rigged up a projector where they could present their plan on the big screen.  The plan called for the Town of Eads to purchase/receive the Plains Theater and two other historical buildings attached to the Plains on the south that were affecting the theater's structure.  In this way, the local government could get the government grants required to save the facility.  It also called for the County to pay the insurance and to share the expense of the utilities with the Town.  The final component was to form a non-profit group that would be the catalyst for the project.  Crow-Luther Cultural Events Center, the only non-profit in town for some time, was formed out of this concept in order to run the programs, write the grants, and plan the process of saving the Plains and the two other historical buildings into a cultural center for the community.  Since then that Class of 2006 has gone through college earning PhD degrees, nursing degrees, and an array of other professional achievements.  But they have not forgotten the Plains and continue to support the project.  The ensuing classes continue to work on the project in an array of opportunities.  This was truly a grassroots movement that has paid off in big way for our community.