Solomon Islands RPCV Diane Darr to receive Legacy Award
Read and comment on this story from the Bloomington Sun on Solomon Islands RPCV Diane Darr who will receive the Legacy Award for her work as an arts activist who has long been devoted to the Bloomington arts community and helped several organizations initiate programs.
While a volunteer in the Solomon Islands Darr took it upon herself to write and produce a play about the PT109, the World War II torpedo boat captained by John F. Kennedy before it was sliced in two by a Japanese warship. The incident occurred in the Solomons and was legend when the Darrs arrived. Read the story at:
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Arts activist Diane Darr to receive Legacy Award
By Harvey T. Rockwood Sun Newspapers (Created 11/1/02 9:37:25 AM)
Diane Darr, a Bloomington teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and activist on the local arts scene for years, has been named the 2002 recipient of the Legacy Award from the Bloomington Community Foundation.
The award will be presented in ceremonies Tuesday, Nov. 12, at the Radisson South Hotel, 7800 Normandale Blvd., Bloomington.
Darr’s award will be the fifth presented by the Foundation. It is given annually for notable achievements in community leadership, support of community projects and high ethical standards.
She has long been devoted to the Bloomington arts community and helped several organizations initiate programs, friends and acquaintances said.
“She’s an amazing person,” said John Command, director of many recent productions by the Bloomington Civic Theatre (BCT), which Darr helped re-energize when she got involved in the 1970s.
“Diane is a real dynamo,” Command said. “I think probably every single day of the year she’s doing something to advance theater in this community.”
Darr was deeply involved in early efforts to bring the arts to a wider community, recalled Victoria Madsen, now a BCT board member.
With her late husband, former City Councilmember Bob Barr, she worked to get the city’s first “showmobile” and establish the Arts in the Parks program, Madsen said.
“That spread arts through the whole city and brought arts to people who might otherwise not have been able to participate and enjoy arts and music and dancing,” she said.
“She was one of the early members of Bloomington Civic Theatre and served in many capacities, acting and singing and working on the board of directors,” Madsen said.
Command said Darr had been involved in virtually every aspect of the theater’s operations, from costume-making and stage-building to mailing theater notices.
Darr now serves as BCT’s treasurer. Command and Madsen credited her with stabilizing the theater’s finances and broadening its audience. Command said that contribution alone can’t be overestimated in the era of skyrocketing expenses to put on theater productions.
“She’s just had a tremendous impact on BCT’s well-being,” Command said.
Darr also was instrumental in establishing the Bloomington Arts Center in a former city building across Old Shakopee Road from City Hall.
“They said to us, ‘We’ll give you a year,’” Darr recalled. “If you can establish a program in a year, we’ll maintain the building.’”
Darr and others got the program off the ground. The Arts Center is still in operation, but most functions will move to Bloomington’s new City Hall/Arts Center complex, which is under construction.
“Of course, none of this would have happened without Bob,” Darr said in an interview last week.
“Of course, none of it would have happened without you, either,” responded Jan Bernards, another arts activist who sat in on the interview.
Darr also was credited with roles in establishing the Bloomington Fine Arts Council and children’s choirs and theater programs.
For her part, Darr said she considers herself fortunate.
“I’m a part of the most exciting theater group in town,” she said. “We have exceptionally talented people in positions of leadership.
“Theater is about life. What we’re trying to do, through the theater, is to expose people to life,” she said.
She said BCT’s staff and supporters are anxious to see it move to new quarters.
“The theater survived 50 years with no home,” she said. “Now we’ve got what we never had and it will go on forever.”
Darr also taught arts and other classes at BRAVO!, Bloomington’s alternative middle school, for a number of years.
Darr and her husband decided to enter the Peace Corps after Bob Darr took early retirement from his job at Control Data Corp in 1988. The Corps was eager to accept them, as she had skills as an English teacher and Bob Barr was a skilled engineer, she recalled.
The service sent the Barrs to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, where they came to love the residents, Darr said.
In addition to her teaching duties, Darr took it upon herself to write and produce a play about the PT109, the World War II torpedo boat captained by John F. Kennedy before it was sliced in two by a Japanese warship.
The incident occurred in the Solomons and was legend when the Darrs arrived. Local youth had no acting experience but were eager to participate, she said.
They scrambled for paper and cardboard to build sets and borrowed clothing from area monks to make costumes, Darr said.
She has thought of producing the play in Bloomington.
“It’s a different spin than the movie,” Darr said.
After the Darrs returned, they had two Solomon Islanders as exchange students live in their home while attending Bloomington schools.
They became as much a part of the Darr family as the couple’s own three children, she said.
The Legacy Award program will include commentary from Bloomington Mayor Gene Winstead, followed by performances by members of the Bloomington Fine Arts Council and the Sounds of Silver.
There will be a cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres from area restaurants.
Registration and a social hour will begin at 5:30 p.m. and the program will begin at 6:15 p.m.
The suggested donation is $50 but other amounts will be accepted. All proceeds will go to Community Foundation programs such as scholarships and education grants.
Previous Legacy Award winners are the late former Mayor Jim Lindau; Bloomington attorney Bob Hoffman; Don Groen, former president of the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce; and Jan and Marty Chorzempa, community activists.
For more information, call 763-531-7121 or 952-884-1118.
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