Our Lamplighter of the Year
We thank the people who have supported us, inspired us and kept us going throughout the seasons.
2007-2008Horton Foote
Wharton native Horton Foote (March 14, 1916-March 4, 2009) was one of America's leading dramatists. He received his first Academy Award in 1962 for his screenplay of To Kill a Mockingbird, and his second in 1983 for Tender Mercies. Mr. Foote also received the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for The Young Man From Atlanta.
Mr. Foote's early career in writing for the stage led him into writing television drama. The next step in his career lead to Hollywood where he wrote an adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty years later. Mr. Foote's play A Trip to Bountiful (nominated for an Academy Award and produced for stage and television) won an Academy Award for Geraldine Page. 
Mr. Foote's most recent work is the book, Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood (1999), an account of life in Wharton, Texas, where he was born in 1916. Wharton provided the model for the fiction town of Harrison, Texas, the setting for many of Foote's plays.
In 1989 he was the recipient of The William Inge Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre Award. More recent honors include a Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, a Lifetime Achievement award from the Writer's Guild of America in 1999, and the Master American Dramatist Award of the Pen American Center in May 2000.
Photo by John Dettling
2006-2007
Kristin Mills, Mike Mills, Mystan Gurkin
("Rarely heard, seldom seen, never listened to.")
This award, which shines a light on three essential but usually unseen members of the theatre, was presented at the 2006 Lamplighter Gala on November 11. Entertainment for the event was Beatles tribute band Penny Lane, who recreated highlights of the Fab Four's career on the Plaza stage, complete with historically accurate instruments, costumes and stage patter.
Dr. Gurkin, a general surgeon at South Texas Medical Clinics, is the Plaza's technical director and head of the Production Board. She has been responsible for set design and construction for numerous Plaza productions, including Plaza Suite, Evita, The King and I, Nine, The Musical, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Wizard of Oz, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and The Mousetrap.
Ms. Mills, who was active in theatre at Wharton High School and currently is a registered nurse, helps with set construction but specializes in set decoration as well as meticulously crafted props and has been indispensable to most Plaza productions since 1995.
Like many members of the organization, she is from a Footeliter family: her father, Mike Mills, is the theatre's lighting designer and has been involved with the group since 1989. He has more than 30 Footeliter productions to his credit. He is a media technician at WCJC, a paramedic with the City of Wharton, and the organist at St. Paul Lutheran Church.
Photo by John Dettling
2005-2006
Sally Soderquist
Sally Soderquist often accompanies Footeliter musical productions, but the spotlight focused on her as she was honored as Lamplighter of the Year at the Lamplighter Gala: Blame It On The Movies held at the Wharton County Historical Museum on February 25, 2006.
The former Sally Watson was born in Center and grew up in Huntsville, Houston and other East Texas towns. She graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in English and music.
She met Emil Soderquist at the First Baptist Church in Rosenberg. Their first date was to hear the Houston Symphony. The couple moved to Wharton in 1968 because of Emil's job as a safety educator for the Department of Public Safety. The next year she began to accompany soloists for University Interscholastic League (UIL) competitions and soon was teaching music at area preschools and giving private lessons. She has seen her students grow up and bring their children to her for lessons as well. "I love it," she says. "I love that I can say, 'Baby, you can do it!' and encourage them the way I was encouraged."
"We are incredibly lucky to have Sally work with us," says Footeliter president Candyce Byrne. "When a hapless singer starts out in the wrong key or skips the second verse, she follows right along, transposing as she goes, and nobody in the audience knows anything's wrong. And, of course, when we get it right, she shines as well."
Mrs. Soderquist is also known for dressing up along with the cast, donning a nun's habit for the Nunsense plays or pinning a hibiscus behind her ear for South Pacific.
Her family's musical legacy also includes Jimmie Davis, her father's uncle. Davis was a songwriter, country music superstar and film star in the nineteen-thirties and -forties who used one of his most famous compositions, "You Are My Sunshine," as his campaign song when he defeated Huey Long to become governor of Louisiana in 1944. Louisiana's "Singing Governor" continued his musical and acting careers during and after his term of office and was elected governor a second time in 1960.
The Soderquists have three sons and six grandchildren. Eldest son Morgan and his wife Cheryl live with their children Ethan and Emily in Martindale, Texas; middle son Jones lives in Wharton with his son Erin and daughter Janelle; and Tim and his wife Suzanne and their sons, Jordan and Nicholas, live in Magnolia.
Photo by John Dettling
2004-2005
Betty and Sylvan Miori
Betty and Sylvan Miori were honored as the 2004-2005 Lamplighters of the Year at the third annual Lamplighter Gala: Broadway Comes to Wharton at the Wharton County Historical Museum on November 6.
Colorful, charismatic Sylvan and moviestar-beautiful Betty have been instrumental to our success as a theatre group and our quest to restore and maintain the Plaza Theatre from the beginning. Not only have they provided direct contributions, such as underwriting productions of Evita, The King and I, Nine, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, To Kill A Mockingbird,Grease and Steel Magnolias, but they have also provided invaluable assistance and advice.
Sylvan, ably assisted by Betty, has made it a practice to give back to the community all his life. He is a past member of the Wharton city council, past president of the Rotary Club and Little League, and received national attention for his role in founding TAPS (Teens are People Savers), an inventive program to encourage teens to become regular blood donors. He was honored by Pope John Paul II by being named a Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory and received a Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service, an organization formed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to establish a “Nobel Prize” for public and community service.
Betty volunteers as a caregiver for the Houston Hospice Care Center and says the patients she cares for give her far more than she is able to give them.
Photo by John Dettling
2003-2004
Mary Ann Hensley
In 1952, teenagers Mary Ann Zubicek, who worked in the Plaza ticket booth, and Billy Ray Kammerer, the projectionist, helped publicize the opening of Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic The Greatest Show on Earth. Mary Ann made her own popcorn-studded dress. Photo from the collection of Mary Ann Hensley
Mary Ann (Zubicek) Hensley took special care of patrons at the Plaza Theatre box office through the close of the 2007-2008 season.
2002-2003
Jeanene D. Merka
Photo by John Dettling |
Jeanie Merka, our very first Lamplighter, is a lady who has supported and inspired so many people and things in Wharton that the town would not be the same without her. Neither would the Footeliters, the Litefooters, or the Plaza Theatre. |
