‘Ol’ Diz: A Musical Baseball Story’
A new musical about the life of baseball great Dizzy Dean – the work of Rappahannock resident Ben Jones and noted Nashville songwriters David Olney and John Hadley – has its first performance at the Theatre at 8 p.m. Nov. 17.
Jones is effusive about the show. “I first performed ‘Ol’ Diz’ as a one-man show at the Theatre about 10 years ago. I kept working on it and performing it around the country, including a couple of times at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. And I kept thinking it really lent itself to music. Dizzy and his pals with ‘The Gashouse Gang,’ the St. Louis Cardinals of the 1930s, loved to pick and sing. They
called themselves ‘The Mudcat Band,’ and they had a great time with it. So I talked to David Olney about it and he ran with the idea.”
Olney is a legendary singer and songwriter whose tunes have been recorded by the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Del McCoury and Emmylou Harris. Olney joins Jones in the production, along with the Shenandoah Drive bluegrass band, singer Lisa Meadows, fiddler Anthony Van Pelt and the gifted Rappahannock musician Dontez Harris, who appears as the great pitcher Satchel Paige.
Tickets for the show at the Theatre are $25 for adults ($10 for students 17 and younger).
Garden Club sends kids to Nature Camp
The Rappahannock County Garden Club 2013 Nature Camp Scholarship Program is open to any child who lives in Rappahannock County; the only requirement is a genuine desire on the part of the child to attend the camp. Since 1950, the Garden Club has been providing scholarships for local children to attend Nature Camp in Vesuvius, Va. The two- week camp, one of the oldest of its kind in the country, seeks to provide hands-on natural history and environmental education to boys and girls currently enrolled in grades five through 12. Interested parents and students can learn more about Nature Camp at naturecamp.net. For more information, contact Sylvia Garcia at 540- 987- 3121 or sylvia.garcia@ hughes.net. Scholarship applications are also available through the guidance departments at the county’s public and private schools. Deadline for submitting applications is Dec. 7.
Hunting season night closures
Portions of Skyline Drive will be closed at night during hunting season, Shenandoah National Park superintendent Martha Bogle announced recently. From Nov. 12 through Jan. 5, the portions of Skyline Drive between Front Royal and Thornton Gap and between Swift Run Gap and Rockfish Gap will be closed daily from 5 p. m. to 8 a. m. The central portion of the Drive, between Thornton Gap and Swift Run Gap, remains open for overnight access to Big Meadows Campground and Skyland Resort until those facilities close ( on Nov. 25 and Dec. 2, respectively). From Dec. 2 to Jan. 5, the entire length of the Skyline Drive will be closed nightly from 5 to 8.
“Closing portions of the Skyline Drive enables rangers to concentrate patrols on problem areas and to increase contacts along the park boundary,” said Bogle, who went on to remind people that there is a reward program to assist in combating illegal hunting.
“A reward will be paid to anyone who furnishes information which leads to the conviction of any person who hunts, transports or attempts to transport illegally taken wildlife within the park,” said Bogle.
Anyone with information about such activities should call the park ( 800- 732- 0911 or 540- 999- 2227). The identity of persons furnishing information will be kept strictly confidential, and a person does not have to reveal his or her name.