Edna Earle Boykin: One of a kind

The wind was brisk and unpredictable when a large crowd laid to rest Edna Earle Boykin Wednesday morning — an appropriate weather pattern for the feisty, determined, witty and wise 90-year-old who died Christmas Day. Gathered around the polished wood coffin in the old section of Maplewood Cemetery were scores of admirers, supporters and beneficiaries of her wise counsel and generous donations. The retired school teacher, school administrator, Wilson City Council member and arts and education advocate had preached education for children, care and concern for children, education for its innate value and arts for the health of the community. She gave generously to the Arts Council of Wilson, to Barton College and to other promoters of education and culture. She was quick to offer her opinion and adamant about the importance of art and education.

Jim Hemby, the retired Barton College president, had the crowd nodding and chuckling as he described Boykin's command to him about what he should say at her funeral.

The grave site where so many gathered in the chilly wind Wednesday stands within sight of Margaret Hearne School, where Boykin spent most of her career and where she ruled as queen of the roost and caretaker of thousands of impressionable children. She was my younger daughter's first school principal. When my wife was elected president of the Hearne PTO, she quickly found out that Miss Boykin really ran the organization; the president need not worry.

Soon after I came to Wilson in 1980, the Board of Education decided to demolish the 19th century Hearne School building and rebuild a "modern" one-story school on the same site. Miss Boykin went along with the decision, though it seemed obvious that she loved that old brick edifice that had once been the pride of Wilson's city school system. The public was warned that the building was so old that it was a hazard and might collapse anytime. When the bulldozers came, they found the 8-foot-thick walls much more of an obstacle than they'd thought. I'll bet Edna grinned wryly at the impotence of the bulldozers against her old school.

She used to tell audiences that "I am Miss Boykin, but I haven't missed a thing!" When she retired from the school system, she proudly boasted that she had just sold the car she had bought new in 1948 — a Lincoln — for more than she'd paid for it nearly 40 years before. She got enough from the sale to buy herself a brand new Lincoln. Her frugality and shrewd business sense served her well and allowed her to give large donations to her favorite charities. Her support of the Wilson Theatre renovations prompted the city and Arts Council to rename the historic building the Edna Boykin Cultural Center.

Her humor, experiences and well-honed sensibility helped her through her run for City Council. I clearly remember her defending the city's investments in downtown, citing other cities that had restored their downtowns and thrived while other cities had allowed downtowns to deteriorate, and that decay had metastasized to an ever-widening area of the city. She overcame my concerns that, as a large property owner, she might favor landlords over renters in city regulations, but she turned out to be a defender of the poor against those who would exploit their powerlessness.

For much of her career, Hearne School educated some of the city's poorest children, and that experience clearly influenced Boykin's judgments. She believed in education. She believed in the benefits of the arts. She believed in her hometown. And she didn't mind telling anyone how she felt. Just a couple of years ago, I ran into her at the theater that bears her name and had a spirited and delightful conversation with her as she sat (no longer able to stand for long periods) and gathered well-wishers and admirers.

She was one of a kind, a treasure and an inspiration.

Two theater patrons upstage Zelda

The Theater of the American South's Friday night opening was a one-woman show, but two women were in the spotlight before the curtain rose. Before Betsy Henderson portrayed neurotic, aging Zelda Fitzgerald on stage, Edna Earle Boykin and Carol Blake Baldwin accepted the ovations of the crowd who gathered for a reception celebrating the reopening of the Edna Boykin Cultural Center, formerly known as the Wilson Theatre.

Arts Council director Barry Page, in a voice that required no amplification, reviewed for the crowd the history of the place where they had gathered and the contributions of the two women in turning the Boykin Center into the showplace it has become. The city-owned theater had recently undergone nearly $100,000 in structural repairs. Page also cited the contributions of local attorney Woody Harrison, who led a small group that kept the theater's dream alive at a time when few people thought its transformation was possible. Donors provided food and drinks for the reception for everyone attending the Friday night production.

Boykin, a retired school principal (and once Page's boss), spearheaded city efforts to preserve and renovate the theater. She recalled the public opposition to the project as a costly boondoggle that would never succeed. As a member of City Council, Boykin got out in front of public opinion and pushed the vision for renovation of the theater, which had recently been an X-rated movie house. Boykin also made the largest private donation to the theater renovation, earning her name a place on the marquee.

Carol Blake, who has since left Wilson, kept the theater project alive in those early years as a part-time director and preservationist. She finagled volunteers and community service workers to stabilize the theater and begin its renovation, even when it had no effective heating or air conditioning, its seats were a wreck and its ornate plaster was falling. Blake and Harrison fought off the naysayers who wanted the 1919 theater sold or bulldozed.

After the recognitions and Boykin's witty comments, it was time for "The Last Flapper." Henderson faced the unenviable task of spending two hours alone on stage, reciting nonstop dialogue as Zelda's schizophrenic mind relives various key events in her life. Henderson made William Luce's script, confined to a psychiatrist's  office at Highland Hospital in Asheville, plausible. The play moves slowly at first as Henderson's extended soliloquy is interjected by announcements over the hospital's public address system. The pace picks up halfway through the first act when Zelda begins recalling and reliving her sometimes-rocky relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henderson carries Zelda's perspective through the volatile second act.

Watching Henderson's monumental challenge of recreating the nonstop thoughts of a deranged woman for two hours, I began to wonder why playwrights have so taken to one-person shows. We've gone from a minute or two of Shakespearean soliloquy (Hamlet's "To be or not to be ..." or Lady MacBeth's "Out, out, damned spot ...") to two full hours of monologue, which has to challenge even the most skilled actors and the most effective and efficient memories. Last year at Theater of the American South, Quinn Hawkesworth did an amazing job in spending two hours on stage in Lee Smith's "Fair and Tender Ladies" (she had been Allan Gurganus' "Oldest Living Confederate Widow" the year before). The only thing that makes Hawkesworth's achievement overshadow Henderson's this year is that Hawkesworth also had a major role in the theater festival's other production last year, "Steel Magnolias," which ran in repertory. That anyone can remember that many lines and deliver them flawlessly,  as both Hawkesworth and Henderson did, absolutely amazes me.

The one-person show trend seems to have started, at least in my memory, 30 or so years ago with Hal Holbrooke's highly successful "Mark Twain Tonight." Other historical figures, including Harry Truman, have been portrayed in one-person shows, and playwrights seem to like the genre. But these scripts have to be a challenge for actors, and the audience is subjected to a performance that is, in essence, a two-hour lecture, no matter how well performed. I'll confess to having to fight to keep from nodding off deep into these one-person shows, and I've noted many others making the same struggle.

Shakespeare knew that good theater was about action, and that requires more than one character on the stage, so he kept his soliloquies mercifully brief. And that was long before our attention spans were decimated by news briefs, texting, Twitter and sound bites.

City's deed transfer jeopardizes theater

Finally. Wilson City Council's plan to dump the Wilson Theatre (now the Edna Boykin Cultural Center) on the Arts Council of Wilson is at last getting some scrutiny. An article in today's Wilson Daily Times announces that Edna Boykin is upset about the city's plans to give away the landmark theater to the Arts Council. "The Arts Council positively cannot afford to take over the theater," Boykin told the newspaper, adding that if forced to accept the theater, the Arts Council would simply have to shut the doors.

Others, including the Wilson Playhouse, a highly respected amateur theater group, worries that if the Arts Council has to take over insurance, maintenance and other costs now covered by the city, it would be forced to raise the rent so high that arts groups, which operate on a shoestring budget, would have to find a cheaper venue.

City Council is toying with the future of the circa-1919 theater, which was magnificently restored in the 1990s and has become one of Wilson's top attractions. It was the Boykin Center that made it possible for Wilson to lure Theater of the American South here.

It should come as no surprise that Arts Council officials have been largely silent about all of this. City Council has the arts group over a barrel. The Arts Council receives $100,000 in city funding annually, and the wrong comment could jeopardize that essential funding. So of course they aren't going to criticize the gift.

Boykin isn't so reticent. The retired elementary school principal and former City Council member remains a determined adversary and has many admirers in Wilson. Thousands of Wilsonians began their education under her guidance. A longtime advocate of the arts and a generous donor to artistic and educational causes, Boykin will not sit silently while the Arts Council is saddled with huge new liabilities. She is a force to be reckoned with.

Last month's hasty decision needs to be reconsidered. If the city is determined to rid itself of the theater, which it purchased in the early 1980s to save Wilson from the embarrassment of having an X-rated theater so close to City Hall (the WDT article incorrectly says the city bought the theater in the 1990s), it must provide the Arts Council an additional infusion of cash to cover its added expenses. The arts community is grateful that the city spent $91,000 fixing rotted roof trusses traced to a leaky roof (that had probably been leaking for 25-plus years), but the Arts Council is not prepared to insure and maintain this building indefinitely.

This property transfer could also be seen as a threat that the city might give the Arts Council the former BB&T office that is now the Wilson Arts Center.

Some may argue that the city should not own properties not used for city operations, but watch out for the logical conclusion to that argument. The city owns Fleming Stadium, home of the Wilson Tobs and the N.C. Baseball Museum. Why not give the stadium and museum to the Tobs baseball club and see how well the team can insure and maintain that property?

The Boykin Center, the Arts Center and Fleming Stadium are all important assets that draw visitors to Wilson and enhance the quality of life for Wilson residents. The cheapest, most efficient way of keeping the properties operating and contributing to Wilson's culture and environment is through city ownership. Municipal ownership of museums, theaters, stadiums, amphitheaters and other attractions is not unusual. The city's annual costs, with the exception of occasional major repairs and renovations, are relatively cheap for what these properties contribute.

One theater giveaway; one news story underplayed

Looks like the Arts Council of Wilson owns a theater, whether it likes it or not. The Wilson Daily Times is reporting today that Arts Council officials are pretty much speechless over the donation of the city-owned Edna Boykin Cultural Center to the nonprofit agency. They don't know what to say. While it's not nice to look a gift theater in the footlights, this gift could turn out to be an albatross.

Wilson City Council agreed to be generous in one fell swoop in a meeting earlier this month, voting first to repair the landmark theater's roof trusses (damaged by a leaky roof) and then agreeing without warning to donate the theater to the Arts Council. Doing so gets the asset, which can be a big liability, off the city's books, and it saddles the Arts Council with unknown future maintenance costs. At a minimum, the Arts Council will have to take out an insurance policy on the building. Councilman James Johnson made the unexpected motion to make the gift, and his motion passed quickly and without any input from the Arts Council. It seems obvious that Johnson had done his homework to line up  the votes to support his plan, but it also appears that he did not seek the approval of arts advocates who may justifiably worry how much of a burden this gift will turn out to be.

Some history is needed: In the early 1980s, City Council members were embarrassed to have X-rated  movies advertised on a marquee little more than a block from City Hall. To get rid of the embarrassing eyesore, the city bought the Wilson Theatre (I recall the purchase price being $100,000), shut down the projectors and cleared the marquee. Little was done to rehabilitate  the historic 1919 theater until some years later. The city again put up most of the money, matching private donations (including $150,000 from Edna Boykin) to restore the theater. Management of the theater was turned over to the Arts Council, but the city kept the deed and responsibility for major repairs.

Today's news story appears to be a compensation for the grossly underplayed original story. On Jan. 16,  the WDT reported, far down in a story with a headline that made no reference to the theater or Arts Council: 

"In other business, The City Council also made a decision on repairs to the downtown Edna Boykin Cultural Center. The council decided to have the ceiling trusses repaired for $91,750. Councilman James Johnson III recommended that the city turn over the property deed to the Arts Council of Wilson after the repairs are complete. The council voted in favor of the move." 

That's it? More than 25 years of city ownership of one of Wilson's most visible and most-used historic structures ended in a quick and surprising vote, and all it's worth is a two-sentence mention under the "other business" rubric? City Council drops a new liability on a nonprofit organization that attracts thousands of members, donors and patrons and earns Wilson a reputation as an arts-oriented city, and it's only worth two sentences? The city gives away a historic theater that is home to the Theater of the American South, and it's not even worth a separate news story in what is supposed to be a local, local, local newspaper? What could be a bigger local story than the city's giving away (without negotiation) the theater it has owned for more than 25 years? And why did it take nearly two weeks for the folks at the WDT to realize they blew this story the first time around?

The city's gift might result in a workable arrangement in the long run. The newspaper's downplaying of City Council's action will remain an egregious shirking of its watchdog role.