By Jaymie L. White Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
STEPHENVILLE — On Saturday, April 22, Mayor Tom Rose was stateside in Lake City, South Carolina for a PBS production titled ‘Inside the Circle’. The second half of the show will be filmed in Stephenville and tickets for that event have already gone on sale. “We’ve been working on this for about a year now. It’s a ‘twinning’ between Stephenville and Lake City, South Carolina,” said Rose in an interview ahead of the event.. “They are doing a film shoot and on the 22nd of April it’s in South Carolina, in Lake City, and I’m heading down for that. On June 24, the shoot will take place in Stephenville and a delegation from South Carolina is going to come to Stephenville for that.” The program will focus on the exchange of culture between both communities in respect to music, culinary talents, and artists, and will showcase the best of what each locality has to offer. Tickets are already on sale at Debbie’s Video for the Stephenville concert titled ‘Towns in Tune’, hosted by Amy House, which will feature main performances by the Irish Descendants and Ruthie Collins and will also feature songwriters Bob Hallett, Jackie Sullivan, Philip Lammond, and Patrick Davis. The doors for the event will open at 6:00 p.m. with the show beginning at 7:00 p.m., and it will be taking place at the Stephenville Airport terminal. Following the concert, a small plate reception will take place. All proceeds from the tickets, which are $25 each, will go to the food bank in the community, Stephenville Emergency Food Services, as a way of giving back. In South Carolina, Mayor Rose was interviewed by PBS, which will be featured in their program, and the same will happen for the Mayor of Lake City, Yamekia Robinson, when she arrives in Stephenville. “It’s a great opportunity, but the biggest impact for us on this is, obviously the promotion of culture. That’s very important, but more importantly, we get to market Stephenville on the PBS network in the U.S. which, the marketing dollars, I would not be able to afford to get that kind of marketing on Stephenville,” admitted Rose. Rose believes three factors led to Stephenville being chosen along with Lake City. “Stephenville has got a very vibrant arts community, with the Stephenville Theatre Festival, the Feather and Folk Festival, our SCDC (Stephenville Cultural Destination Committee), our Harmon work that has been done in the past, and because we were a former U.S air force base and we were a 9-11 airport. I would say there were a lot of service personnel who actually were from South Carolina who rotated and lived into Stephenville in the 25 years that Harmon had its air base here,” said Rose. “We had a lot of cultural things, but I think the U.S. air force base was probably the biggest thing that helped us twin with the U.S. on this one.” There wasn’t an application process in order to get chosen and ‘twinned’ with Lake City. “One of the producers out of St. John’s reached out to me, and I personally know him, and he said ‘I have an idea, what do you think’? And we got the train rolling.” The show will see similar experiences take place in both towns. “Basically, they are going to do the exact replica (in Lake City) that they are going to be doing in Stephenville,” said Rose. “The provincial artists will be performing on stage along with local artists and artists from South Carolina, and in South Carolina there will be Newfoundland artists and their state artists and local artists performing down there. There will also be a culinary aspect. They’re utilizing their culinary skills. There will be a serving to the guests, and the venue setting is about 200-250 people and the set location is the terminal of the airport here in Stephenville, so, very nostalgic.” “This production won’t be the only thing happening over that weekend in Stephenville – it will be chock full of wonderful experience.” “The night before, Arts NL will be having their awards banquet provincially in Stephenville, so there will be an event on Friday night, an event on Saturday night, and on Sunday afternoon, while everything is set up, they are having a songwriter’s circle also. It’s a three-day event of music, song, culinary, artists. It’s going to be phenomenal.” Rose believes this production will see major recognition for Stephenville on the world stage in a way they haven’t been before. “I’m a big PBS fan and now Stephenville gets to be showcased. We have a lot of ‘wow’ moments with the 9-11 role this community played. The former U.S. air force base, our streets are named after states, and it’s interesting. I said this to the mayor, that Stephenville town office is on Carolina Avenue, so we’ve got a little bit of a connection there,” shared Rose. “On a more localized connection, when I first did my research, there is a lot of strawberry farming done in Lake City because they have excellent soil structure, and I was a commercial strawberry farmer too, so I’ve got that little connection with Lake City.” Celebrating the Arts community is something Rose believes is incredibly important and the ability to share on such a large scale was an opportunity that couldn’t refused. “I’m so impressed because I know that our artisans are some of the very best in the world, the ones who exist in this area. We have a lot to be proud of, and this actually shows that, in order to grow a community, you need to have the arts. You have to be focused on marketing and promoting and doing what you can for the arts community because, in order to attract professionals, having a good arts community helps to hold them.”
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