72 years into the show, he’s honing the edges of life as art
Article by Hudson Old, publisher of East Texas Journal
Ed’s note: Once in the wake of an ice storm that shattered the forest canopy, I was on the tractor pushing broken limbs of tree tops into burning piles when Ron Barker showed up with a chainsaw and began work cutting and stacking brush into the recognizable shapes of dinosaurs. More recently, he’s become commander of the Franklin County Arts Alliance, which makes sense for anybody seeing the Barker-esque logic of broken treetops as a portal into art. That’s about all the introduction this interview needs.
Me: Ron, who are you and what are you doing here? Be brief – there’s only so much ram in my old wood burning IBM 486.
Ron: I’m a product of Mt. Vernon, born, raised here. East Texas State University 64/65, US Army 66-69 serving at Ft. Carson, Colorado, Southeast Asia (Thailand) where I began my passion for photography, Ft. Bragg, NC (Honor Guard/burial detail), Jungle School in Panama and then back to college at East Texas getting a degree in Photography and Journalism. Married a hometown
girl, Sue Scott, had two children, Karen a pediatrician in Dallas, and Cole, a former Drilling Fluid Engineer/contractor in Colorado. Both kids graduated from Baylor University. Sue has her masters and is the director of Adult Literacy at NTCC. I’ve worked as a photographer, contractor and lake developer. I once had my septic system installer’s license and considered myself the “Septic Tank King of Lake Cypress Springs. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds.” I developed Barker Creek and Northshore at Lake Cypress Springs increasing the tax base of Franklin County by millions.
Me: Okay, enough. Let’s focus: What were the best and favorite things you have done or accomplished?
Ron—Well Hudson, easy question. My best accomplishments and favorite things are our kids. We feel like and have been told many times that Sue and I raised perfect children. Now the running joke is, oh, it must have been Sue. You must have traveled a lot, ha?
Me: Wasn’t there once some
sort of expose about you, something about clogging up the city night depository by trying to stu 8,000 loose pennies through the mail slot to pay a water bill?
Ron: The kids were gone by then and I felt it was something that needed to be done.
Me: Favorite jobs?
Ron: My favorite job was when the Texas Democratic Party hired me to spend the day with President Bill Clinton in 1999, in Texarkana.
I would have done that photo shoot free, but they insisted.
Me: Favorite people you worked with?
Ron: Another easy one. My favorite employers were the King family: Bruce, D’Aune, and Tommy. I was able to put Diamond K on
the cover of Pipe Liners Hall of Fame with a story called “It’s In the Blood” from a shoot I did for them in Florida. On a side note, I also built Bruce King’s co n and re-constructed an old wooden iron wheel wagon for him to be carried to the church on and delivered the eulogy. I love that family.
Me: But enough about you. What about your slot as king of the Arts Alliance?
Ron: I knew you would cut me o sooner or later. Because of Jeannie Pamplin, a few years back, I got involvedwiththeArtsAlliance. The cause of my involvement was the fact that the Arts Alliance was going to give up a ten-year lease on the Old Franklin County Jail. The Alliance had dressed it up and made an art museum, then moved to new quarters. The old jail was just a storage building and they felt it to be unnecessary. My best friend from childhood, Jerry Tittle (son of Sheri John “Jr.” Tittle) had played in and around that jail from 1950 or earlier. Jerry and his family resided in the living quarters of the old jail until 1964, when he graduated from Mt. Vernon High School. His mother Dorothy
cooked for the prisoners and many times Jerry would deliver the meals up to the cells. Jerry has so many stories you wouldn’t believe and it’s been a joy to get back together with literally a lifelong friend.
End of the story is, I wanted to return the Old Jail Museum to its original state of being an old jail. I called Jerry and with the help of his wife Sue, we began to piece together the look of his father’s o ce and cleaned out the junk in the building.
Today we have the jail close to the way we want it and are trying to get the Commissioners to let us run a Bed and Breakfast out of it. As you might guess, there are a lot of rules and the issue has been tabled for now.
Me: I was talking to Tom Wilkinson recently and he told me you had personally saved the Art Center from closing its doors. He suggests you’re the hero in a crucial chapter of the story.
Ron: Did he mention the part where I saved the children from the burning orphanage?
Me: Huh?
Ron: I don’t believe you can say I personally saved it, but I did have some good ideas. Actually one idea I implemented made us over $6,000 to keep us going. In October of 2016, seeing pending doom, and somewhat in the manner of Spanky, in Our Gang Comedies saying, “lets have a talent show,” I mentioned I thought I could revive the old Franklin Follies from the early 80’s that helped build the Library on the square in Mt. Vernon. My sister Nancy Barker-Mays was the president of the Library Board. She had the idea back then and ask me if I could write and direct something called the Franklin Follies. I wrote and directed six of them. The last one was in 1985 and took in $13,500 which was a heck of a lot back then. My sister organized a meal to go with the show, turning it into a dinner theater.
There were many from the community both business and personal who pitched in and made it a great success. Likewise, this last December 3rd, 2016 many had pitched in. We began the last week in October and in ve weeks, we had written a script, found singers, dancers and musicians, so they decided to make me President. Linda Hammonds, Gail Reed and Lisa Lowery were my sidekicks on that project and kept the ball rolling, as did members of the Arts Alliance and many other locals.
This year’s Show will be Oct 21, 2017. It’s called “Blind Justice” and we are starting earlier. The whole show takes place in a courtroom and guess what, the judge is blind. Remember, “there’s no business, like show business”.
Me: So theater is the new focus of the Arts Alliance?
Ron: No Hudson, the Franklin Follies is not our main focus, it’s just for fun, community camaraderie and fundraising. The Arts Alliance makes every effort to give back to the community. We offer individual artist shows 3, 4 or 5 times a year, provide a venue for weddings, meetings and clubs offering our beautiful facilities, including a brick courtyard complete with a beautiful fountain. In the summer we o er children’s art and science classes and a 3-day drama camp called Follies Boot Camp. We have weekly quilting classes and art/painting classes.
Me: Sounds like it takes a lot of time. Why do you do it?
Ron: Sometimes you just have to give back and I love the folks
I work with. Like I said before, “THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS”.
