In the monthly meeting of the Dickens County Historical Commission Jan. 20, the group recognized members leaving the commission, considered new members to recommended to the county commission to join the DCHC and discussed opportunities afforded by the recently awarded $12,000 Texas Humanities Relief Grant. Neil and Nancy Hindman
Neil and Nancy Hindman will be ending their service with the commission and Harry Bob Martin, commission chair, thanked the Hindmans for their 13 years of service. Rick and C.J. Boales were invited to the meeting to consider joining the committee.
Martin said he will nominate the Boaleses as appointees at the February meeting of the Dickens County commissioners.
In other action, commission vice-chair Barbara Brannon discussed the parameters of the Humanities Texas grant. Brannon said that the grant is to be used primarily for programming and promotion, but it can also be used for staffing. The commission discussed having Kristy and Michael Price as contracted theater managers and Jerry Bilberry as a contracted projectionist, utilizing some grant funds for those functions. The Prices and Bilberry have previously served as volunteers for those responsibilities.
Brannon also said that the grant funds were retroactive to September 2021. This will enable earlier programming expenses to be attributed to grant funds, and thereby, free up some monies for continued improvement in, for example, movie audio and speaker equipment.
Kay Ellington, film committee chair, talked about upcoming films to be shown, and shared with the group about a subcommittee group that visited the Grand Theater in Stamford. The subcommittee found out that The Grand has projection equipment that meets the movie studios’ standards for first-run films. The Palace does not have that kind of high-end equipment, so it secures its movies from distributors that are timed with DVD releases.
Ellington suggested the first movie for 2022 would be
“American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story,” which would show Saturday, Feb. 26, and then the next movie would be “Sing 2” which would show March 12 and then “Spiderman: No Way Home” would be March 19 or 26.
When the weather gets warmer, more special events can be tied into movies, she said, like Old West gunslinger shoot-out performers for a Western movie such as “Tombstone.”
The commission also discussed adding more food options, such as hot dogs, since Spur lacks restaurant at present. They also talked about arranging for food trucks in Rickels Park for meals before certain movies.
The commission also discussed planning for The Palace to plan to expand beyond movies for different types of performances, as grant funds are equally applicable to music, spoken word, and theatrical shows.
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