Springfield

Stone Chapel is the oldest stone structure in Springfield, Missouri. Built in 1880 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the chapel... is on the southwest edge of the Drury University campus, at the corner of Central and Benton Avenue. The chapel is the location for a number of religious activities for Drury University, such as the LOGOS Christian Fellowship, Catholic Campus Ministries, and Chow and Chapel events, weddings, graduation Baccalaureate and other various secular activities. The distinctive second floor sanctuary seats around 450 people. A large lounge, kitchenette, choir and meeting facilities occupy the first floor. The recently restored Lyon-Healy pipe organ dates from 1906. The three-manual, 30-rank instrument is utilized by a large class of organ students, for weekend weddings, for the popular Christmas Vespers, and for recitals and other special events in the Chapel. The organ is well-known for its rich sound, enhanced by the chapel's mellow acoustics.
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Mediacom Ice Park is a multi-purpose arena located in downtown Springfield, Missouri. The arena is owned and operated by the Springfield-Greene... County Park Board and serves as a location for community recreation and the home for the Missouri State University Ice Bears ice hockey team, Springfield Wolfpack arena football team, and various youth sports programs. The arena opened in 2001 and was previously known as the Jordan Valley Ice Park; its current name is due to a $200,000 a year, 10-year naming rights agreement with Mediacom, a cable television and communications provider in the United States.
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The Landers Theatre in Springfield, Missouri, built in 1909, is the oldest and largest civic theater operation in Missouri. It has been in continuous... use either as a legitimate theatre or a movie theater since it opened. In 1928, the theater became the 35th facility in the world to acquire sound film. It was designed by architects Carl Boller and Brother in association with Hickenlively and Mark of Springfield in a French-influenced neoclassical style. The theater is unusual in its use of wood for nearly all structural framing, in contrast with the steel and cast iron more usually employed in its time. Landers, the original owner, was in the lumber business, providing a possible explanation. Where steel is employed, it uses unusual bonded steel and masonry assemblies. The theater was designed for live performance, with a large stage and supporting spaces. The theater's street facade employs Missouri limestone piers with terra cotta cornices, cartouches, quoins and parapets. Infill between these decorative elements is brick. A fire in 1920 completely gutted the stage area, but the remainder was saved by the fireproof asbestos curtain.
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Valerie June Carter Cash was an American singer, dancer, songwriter, actress, comedian, and author who was a member of the Carter Family and the... second wife of singer Johnny Cash. She played the guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp and acted in several films and television shows. June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter in Maces Spring, Virginia to Maybelle Carter and Ezra Carter. She was born into country music and performed with the Carter Family from the early age of ten, beginning in 1939. In March 1943, when the Carter Family trio stopped recording together after the WBT contract, Maybelle Carter, with encouragement from her husband Ezra, formed "Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters" with her daughters, Helen, Anita, and June. The new group first aired on radio station WRNL in Richmond, Virginia, on June 1. Doc and Carl —Maybelle's brother and cousin, respectively— known as "The Virginia Boys," joined them in late 1945. June, then 16, was a co-announcer with Ken Allyn and did the commercials on the radio shows for "Red Star Flour", "Martha White," and "Thalhimers Department Store", just to name a few.
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Nicholas James "Nick" Benson is an American teen actor. His first major role was Derrick Westerly on The WB Television Network show Summerland. He... later starred as Rick Thompson on the CBS TV show 'Swingtown'. He was a special Guest Star on the show True Jackson VP show as the school bully in the episode called Ditch Day. Most recently , he starred in the Nickelodeon TV Movie 'Best Player' as Sheldon. Benson was born in Springfield, Missouri. He has two older brothers, Dan Benson and Michael Benson. His brother Dan Benson is also an actor and plays Zeke - a reoccurring guest star role on Disney's Wizard's of Waverly Place. Nick began his acting career in 2001 after moving to Florida. He is also a classical pianist, composer and accomplished student. He is the son of Jim and Marilee Benson.
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Lucas Stephen Grabeel is an American actor, singer, dancer, songwriter, director and producer. As a performer, he is best known for his role as Ryan... Evans in Disney Channel Original Movie's High School Musical and its sequels High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year , and as Ethan Dalloway in the third and fourth installments of the Halloweentown series: Halloweentown High and Return to Halloweentown . Grabeel was born in Springfield, Missouri on November 23, 1984, the son of Jean and Stephen Grabeel. Before transferring to and graduating from Kickapoo High School in Springfield in 2003, he attended Logan-Rogersville Elementary, Middle and High School. He also played drums for a local church and initiated a men's a cappella singing group at a high school. At school, he found passions in the guitar and the accordion while also enjoying dance. He can dance in the styles of jazz, ballet, hip-hop and tap. While in Rogersville, Missouri, he regularly attended Harmony Baptist Church, where he was a part of the children's and youth groups.
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Wesley Webb West , better known as Speedy West, was an American pedal steel guitarist and record producer. He frequently played with Jimmy Bryant,... both in their own duo and as part of the regular Capitol Records backing band for Tennessee Ernie Ford and many others. He also played on Loretta Lynn's first single. Born Wesley Webb West January 25, 1924 in Springfield, Missouri to parents, Finley G. and Sue Arthur West. Finley was a Linotype operator at a gospel publishing company, and in his spare time, played guitar and sang gospel songs. At age nine, Wesley became interested in music because of his friends and neighbors, the Cline's boys, three brothers. One played steel guitar, another banjo and the other played guitar. The boys' parents suggested to Wesley's father, that he should buy him an inexpensive $12 Hawaiian guitar. Wesley spent all the time he could learning to play the instrument with the help of the Cline's as well as his father. Wesley's interest in music continued to grow and he yearned for a more expensive instrument, namely, a National steel-bodied resonator model costing $125, which the West family could not afford.
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Norman "Buddy" Baker was an American composer who scored many of Walt Disney's films, such as The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides... Again, The Shaggy D.A., The Million Dollar Duck and The Fox and the Hound. Baker was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, and got his degree in music from Southwest Baptist College. He later went to the West Coast in the 1930s to arrange music scores for radio. He became the Musical Director on Bob Hope's radio show. One of his first hits as a big band arranger on record was "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" for the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He later became a professor at L.A. City College in the early 1950s. Among his early students was Jerry Goldsmith. At about this time, his friend George Bruns asked him to compose music for the Disney television show Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. He stayed on at the Disney studio, and eventually became its music director, as well as chief composer for Disneyland and other Disney theme parks. Baker was nominated for an Academy Award for his score the film Napoleon and Samantha.
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William Garwood was an American stage and film actor and director of the early silent era in the 1910s. Between 1911 and 1913, Garwood starred in a... number of early adaptions of popular films including Jane Eyre and The Vicar of Wakefield , Lorna Doone, The Pied Piper of Hamelin and David Copperfield , The Merchant of Venice , and Little Dorrit and Robin Hood . In total, he appeared starred in more than 150 films. Garwood was born in Springfield, Missouri, and at the age of 15 moved to New Mexico for several years. His advanced education was at Springfield's Drury College, where he was awarded prizes for his abilities in dramatic reading and literature. Garwood could have pursued a career as a top athlete and ran the 100-yard dash in 10.20 seconds, also playing on the college football team. His father hoped that he would follow a career in metallurgy and secured a position for his son with a zinc company in Joplin, Missouri. However, young Garwood had other plans, and aspired to be an actor on stage. Among his early work was employment in 1903 for $3.
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Ian Eskelin , is a record producer, songwriter, solo artist, and founding member and lead singer of the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band All Star... United. He won the Dove Award for "Producer of the Year" in 2011 and 2008, and was nominated for the same award in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Eskelin also has received multiple Dove nominations for his songwriting and production work with artists such as Francesca Battistelli, Sidewalk Prophets, Stellar Kart, and Remedy Drive. As an artist and writer Eskelin has had more than thirty Top 10 singles in the United States, including 12 #1 charting songs. He has additionally had international #1 songs in various countries including Japan, Singapore, and Australia. Ian’s songs have been licensed for use on ABC, Spike TV, Style Network, the movie "Soul Surfer", the movie "Saved", the trailer for the film "Superbad", NBC promotionals for the show "Heroes", and multiple CBS network imaging campaigns to name a few. A little known fact was that Ian's roommate while attending Wheaton College, was writer and former pastor of Mars Hill church in Michigan, Rob Bell.
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