Every three years since 1949, Magnolia has been the host to a variety show known for its community involvement, charitable nature and overall magnitude.
This event, of course, is Magnolia Junior Charity League Red Stockings Follies.
“Magnolia Junior Charity League was former in 1946 as a group of women to enhance the opportunities of children in Columbia County,” Molly Burns, 1988 Follies Chairman, said.
“It was formed the Christmas of 1946.”
Mary Harsh, Burns’s mother, was the first president of Magnolia Junior Charity League.
“The Follies is a variety show performed by community people,” Kelli Souter, 2000 Follies Chairman, said.
“You invite the community to come watch and that raises the money for the next three years of Charity League.”
“For years and years we brought a director in from New York City,” Burns said. “So you had a real director from New York and he brought his costumes with him that had just gotten on the boat from the last Follies and came here.”
“They where nasty, but we thought we were Broadway so it didn’t matter,” Whitney Whitelaw, 1975 Follies Chairman, said.
“Obviously, they were off Broadway,” Souter said.
“By the time that I was Chairman, we realized that if they were any good then they would have been on Broadway,” Whitelaw said.
“We always felt like the costumes that they brought with them were leftover Las Vegas costumes,” Burns said.
“They were nice but you could look at them and see how many times they had been repaired. On Saturday night before you could leave you had to go turn your costume in. You had to sign your costume off because if you didn’t costume chairman was coming to look for you. So you took that costume off after you had worn it four straight nights and you put in a pile and they packed it up and shipped it to the next town.”
“So they were never even cleaned,” Whitelaw said.
“Well, you’d do what you could but the dry cleaners wouldn’t even touch some of them,” Allison Schultz, 1991 Follies Chairman, said.
“Actually, on stage with the lighting, they looked good, though. They were flashy and pretty,” Whitelaw said.
“That was one reason for changing to a local person because the costumes don’t go from one show to the next show to the next show,” Burns said.
“Follies got started as a method to raise money,” Burns said. “It was something that they could do and that would involve people in the community.”
“It stuck, though,” Souter said.
“It’s rare for something to stick for that many years.”
“We took a year between ’84 and ’88 to reorganize Follies,” Burns said.
“This was when we went to Red Stockings Follies.”
“That became our staple, logo and brand,” Souter said.
“People in Magnolia now know that the red stockings represents Follies and Charity League.”
“Which was a very smart move,” Whitelaw said.
“We have used it for other things as well, like when we did our cook book we called it Red Stocking Recipes,” Souter said.
“So everything we produce we try to have that as our logo.”
“My Follies in 1991 was easy because, no kidding, not because she is here, but I followed Molly, who reorganized Follies and was organized,” Allison said.
“They had done this reorganization meeting so they had laid everything out like they thought it should be.”
“It takes awhile to get ready for the show and you couldn’t survive if it was every year,” Whitelaw said.
“It’s a month of intense practice where you practice every night, every weekend and every day.”
“You kind of have the summer of somewhat, six to eight months of preparation and then a month of every night,” Allison said.
“They reorganized it to be more condusive to everybody working now but back when more women didn’t work they had day and night committees.”
“We practiced it during the morning and night because most of use didn’t work during the 1970’s,” Whitelaw said.
“So it takes a year and then you kind of need a year off,” Allison said.
“Usually your money last three years and you don’t know how it’s going to but somehow it does,” Souter said.
“Charity League does a fundraising party every year but it’s just not big and traumatic,” Burns said.
“They go to everybody in the community and solicit ads and you hate to ask people to do that every single year.”
The Follies is led every year by the Follies Chairman who is chosen the year before and is basically over in charge of making sure everything with the Follies goes smoothly.
“The Follies Chairman does everything,” Joe Ann Schultz, 1961 Follies Chairman, said.
“The first thing that you have to do is pick the right people,” Souter said.
“If you pick the right people for your co-chairs your job isn’t nearly as hard,” Whitelaw said.
“It’s broken down into all of these different categories,” Souter said.
“If you pick the right people it is one of the easiest jobs, which is the biggest challenge,” Allison said.
“You are leadership by example,” Burns said.
“You have to go to everything,” Allison said.
“You are really a little bit of everything but I think your biggest task is to select great people.”
“Wherever you are needed is where you are, included being in the show,” Souter said.
“I remember getting thrown in when someone couldn’t preform that night and I had one day to learn the dance,” Whitelaw said.
“You’re also the trouble shooter, so you have to step and if someone isn’t doing their part and handle it,” Souter said.
“My director, PR, came in and we fired him,” Whitelaw said.
“It was the week of the Follies and he got mad.”
He said, “he just didn’t think we were cooperating and he thought he would quit.”
I said, “that I thought that was a great idea. Lets walk in and call the company.”
“We walked into the office, called them and of course they got hysterical because they were going to have to send a whole new director and a whole new program, since the program belongs to the director. They ended up making him get his act together.”
“So we have had some real unique personalities that don’t understand Magnolia at all because they’re from New York and have never done small town, but we treated them royally,” Whitelaw said.
“They had access to a car, free hotel room and all of their meals covered. I mean we really made sure they were treated well and that they had a good time here.”
“When I met my director at the airport I told him that we wanted to meet all of his needs and for him to let us know,” Burns said.
He said, “I drink Long Island Iced Tea and they told me I needed to tell you.”
“You know me, I was thinking we’ve got all kinds of ice tea.”
I said, “We can handle that.”
“Of course I didn’t know it was an alcoholic drink, I thought it was funny because the notes said to tell us that he drank Long Island Iced Tea because it was a dry county.”
“I didn’t really have a lot of disasters but I did have a worlds dumbest Follies Chairman moment,” Allison said.
“I went to pick the director up at the hotel one of the first mornings and he said, “I don’t feel well I think I have conjunctivitis.”
“I was young and I didn’t know what conjunctivitis was. I probably had a bag phone or whatever prehistoric cellphone there was then, so I called Kathy and said,”he has conjunctivitis and I don’t want to be in the car with him,” because I thought he would be contagious. She told me that it was pink eye and that I would be fine.
“So I had a few dumb moments,” Allison said.
“Okay so I was 2000 and I was the one that had the repeat director,” Souter said.
“He was very eccentric to say the least. He was suppose to arrive in El dorado and we rented a limo to go pick him up. We all get over to El dorado to pick him up, waiting for him to get there, and come to find out he missed his plane because he didn’t have an I.D.”
“This was prior 9/11 so he was able to get all the way to Dallas but they wouldn’t let him go from Dallas to El Dorado without an I.D.,” Souter said.
“Somehow he ended up in Shreveport, so we came back to Magnolia dropped people off and then drove in the middle of the night to pick him up. Then I had to take all of his clothes and wash them because they were all dirty because he had just come from a different show.”
“You literally baby them,” Souter said.
“Like on the weekends you would go over and make sure that they had food. He didn’t drive either, so we had to take him everywhere.”
“Janet writing and directing the show has been a big success,” Allison said.
“She can put the right people in the right spots and she doesn’t offend anybody,” Souter said.
“You don’t have to worry about people getting their feelings hurt.”
“A lot of these people don’t know each other at the start but are real good friends by the time it’s over,” Whitelaw said.
“The new people who move to Magnolia seem to somehow get drawn to Follies,” Allison said.
“It also a way to show off talent that people would normally not know about,” Souter said.
“This is a good opportunity for new people to meet people to get involved,” Burns said.
“We resold tickets for my Follies,” Burns said.
“I got out and found out who wasn’t coming and I said we can resale your tickets. One reason that mine sold out was because we had a goal of getting different people involved. You could only be in two numbers and if you wanted one of the easy parts you had to be in another number.”
“We tried to involve as many people as possible because to me the best thing about the Follies is that it raises money for the children of Columbia County but also it involves the most people in Magnolia than any other event I’m ever involved in,” Burns said.
“You’re talking about 200 to 250 people coming together from every walk of life to have a good time and raise money for the community.”
“I think that once you’ve done Junior Charity League one of the things you should learn from doing that is to continue being involved in your community. I think all of these women stayed involved in their community in other outlets and that all started with Junior Charity League,” Burns said.
“I think we would all like to be quoted as saying that all League activities lead to involvement and improvement.”