ARLINGTON – There have been penny drives and tugs of war, grants and a gala, a concert series, car washes and cow pies – just about anything the mind can conjure to get it built.
Cow pies?
Cow-pie bingo on the football field was just one chip in the bucket toward the $2.5 million volunteers are trying to raise for a communitywide performing arts center at Arlington High School.
Over the past two years, Arts Alive!, a determined committee of volunteers, has raised nearly $1 million toward the 700-seat theater.
“We will get there,” said Cindy Huleatt, president of the Arlington Education Foundation, which is involved in the theater fund-raising campaign.
Cheerleaders, high school sports teams and other Arlington High School student groups have found ways to contribute. Service organizations including Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions clubs have pitched in, too, fanning across the community with fund-raising of their own.
“We want everyone when they walk in for the first time someday to feel they were a part of it,” Huleatt said.
The performing arts center was a separate ballot measure in 2000 when voters approved a $54 million bond that included building the new high school.
The center received a majority “yes” vote but fell shy of the 60 percent requirement. It was separated from the main bond issue to give voters more choices on how to spend their tax dollars.
Despite the setback, school and arts enthusiasts vowed to pursue the $4.5 million center.
In 2002, the Arlington School Board pledged $2 million toward it. The district owns 489 acres of forestland and is selling timber on it to cover the cost.
Over the past 70 years, the district has sold timber to pay for school remodeling and building construction.
While the timber money paid for the building’s shell, old-fashioned grass-roots fund-raising will finance the interior.
Examples are everywhere. Service organizations are selling seats and bricks where patrons can inscribe a family legacy.
The 67-member Rotary Club of Arlington raised nearly $100,000 for the campaign two years ago with proceeds from its annual “Duck Dash,” a rubber duck regatta down a stretch of the Stillaguamish River.
“It’s a real community effort,” said Dr. Lee Harman, an ophthalmologist and president of the Rotary club.
“That’s how we work in Arlington.”
Come Friday night, alumni blankets featuring images of the old and new Arlington High School will be on sale at a homecoming game.
A giant wood sign in the image of a slowly rising curtain chronicles the progress for all to see downtown.
The effort represents more than two years of work that includes steady contributions from a core group of volunteers. At 7:30 each Wednesday morning, over coffee and an occasional muffin, a dozen volunteers reconnoiter at the high school, discussing their latest efforts to nudge the campaign toward the magical $2.5 million.
Some days, when there’s news of a big payday, there is rosy optimism. On others, there are calls for perseverance and reminders of how far the group has come.
Chelsea Huleatt, Cindy Huleatt’s daughter, and Angela Billdt are 16-year-old juniors at Arlington High School who have served on the volunteer committee since they were incoming freshmen.
“It’s really important to me and Chelsea to get this done,” Billdt said. “We want to be able to perform there before we graduate.”
Chelsea Huleatt said she is glad that other students, not just those invested in the performing arts, have contributed to the campaign.
Athletes got their fields and facilities when the new school was built, and now have stepped forward to help raise money for the center.
“We saw that other people were interested, not just us,” she said. “That helped.”
The group has also reached outside the community as well.
In May, Arts Alive! staged a gala that raised more than $130,000, including a $50,000 challenge grant from the Seattle-based McEachern Foundation.
The fund-raising group learned over the summer that it has been awarded a $375,000 state grant. It also has been awarded two other grants and has been in discussions with the city of Arlington for more than a year about forming a school district and city partnership to help with the financing.
Lisa Hadley, a 1988 Arlington graduate who went on to a successful acting career before joining the family real estate development business, flew back from Hawaii to attend the May gala and offer encouragement.
Her theatrical credits took her from Los Angeles to Edinburgh, Scotland, and she had small TV and movie roles in shows ranging from the “Gilmore Girls” to “Jerry McGuire.”
Today in the business world, she still draws on what she learned from the performing arts at Arlington High School.
“If you have had to get up in front of 400 or 800 people and do a soliloquy or sing, or you have to present yourself some other way, how much does that help you when you have to do a business presentation in front of a group?” she said. “It’s all about confidence.”
Hadley argues that the arts are invaluable, and she believes Arlington recognizes that.
“I think, my gosh, (Arlington) is so lucky to have a community willing to come together to support something like this,” she said.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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