This Issue

Features

May/June

Additional
Features

Twin Falls: A “Nice” Hike
Laura’s Garden
White River’s Navigation Dams: Relics From The Steamboat Era
Waskelly Wabbits
My Little Mother
Get Your Treats On Route 66
Vann Friendship Quilt: A Time for Remembering
Branson Putt-Putt Golf Review

Remembering By Golly

Itinerant Artist And Sign Painter Ernest Schilling Signed His Work With His “Trademark Expression,” By Golly

The year would have been 1959, and I was about to get two of the worst shocks of my young life. My Mom had loaded my brother and me up in the old 1949 Plymouth we owned. We were headed to a small farmstead between Alma and Van Buren, Ark. The ride seemed to take forever from Van Buren, so we were glad to finally reach our destination. Mom got out, and my brother and I followed.
  In front of us stood a small silver trailer, similar to an Airstream. It was nestled in a small grove of oak trees, and would not have been seen at all if a person had not known it was there. The place seemed to be surrounded by goats, and I had never before met one, up close and personal. That was about to change.

 

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Remembering Shad Heller and Branson’s Corn Crib Theatre

Branson’s Toby Show Ran For 20 Years

I was six years old when I saw my first Toby show. Lloyd (Shad) and Ruth (Mollie) Heller successfully produced Hills a Poppin’, a Toby Show at their Corn Crib Theatre for twenty years. My parents were actors and friends of the Hellers, so I grew up around their theatre and realized early on that I wanted to be a part of their show. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in theatre performance, I came home to realize a dream when I was cast in 1986 as Toby’s girlfriend, Sweet Sally, for the show’s last two seasons.
  Eventually, I wrote my Master’s thesis about the Hellers and went on to write a dissertation about Toby shows, as well as operate and produce, for ten years, the last traveling Toby show, the Hard Corn Players. Easy to see how the Hellers and early entertainment in Branson impacted my life! Though most of “old Branson” is gone now, I want to take a moment to remember one of the roots of the Branson entertainment mecca, the Hellers and their Corn Crib Theatre.


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