LAMAR, Mo. — Betty Kuhn remembers watching all the Elvis movies, along with the old westerns and even “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” at the Plaza Theater.

When she was a teenager, she went on her first date with her future husband to the summer vacation movies at the Plaza.

“It was the place to be when you were a kid my age, but you have to understand that was a long time ago — back in the ’50s and ’60s,” said Kuhn, who spearheaded the job of restoring the 70-year old theater.

The Plaza is an artifact from a different time.

Brad Belk, director of the Joplin Museum Complex, said a whole generation of people has powerful memories of the historic movie theaters with their glitzy facades and larger-than-life marquees. It’s a tragedy that so few are left, he said.

Joplin, at one time, had elegant theaters stretching for 10 blocks along Main Street. “There are no duplications of the magnificent nature of the way they were made,” Belk said. “They were living in a time where the movie theater was the paramount entertainment avenue. Everyone was going to the movies, and much of the theater’s drive was as much the ambiance of the theater itself as the attractiveness of the movie they were going to see.”

Lifetime of movies

Butler Felts has been a part of the movie experience in Lamar since 1950, but he has been enamored with the movie business his whole life. Felts’ fascination began when he was 10, making popcorn and performing odd jobs at the Lyric movie theater in Mena, Ark. As a young man, Felts operated the movie projector during his time in the Marine Corps. When he was discharged, he became manager of the drive-in theater in Pittsburg, Kan. He was recruited by Barton County movie mogul A.J. Simmons to help build the drive-in theater in Lamar. That was in 1949. A year later, the BarCo Drive-In Theater was complete, and Felts spent his winter months running the Plaza Theater, which Simmons had built and opened in 1934.

Felts would return to the drive-in for the summer. He eventually married and made his home in Lamar, but he never got over his first love. Felts is now 80 and still runs the historic BarCo Drive-In Theater. His protégé runs the Plaza.

Passing the torch

In 1968, the year Felts took over the Plaza, he found himself shadowed by a young boy who was fascinated with the theater, movies, the projection booth — all of it. “The present manager of the theater, Scott Kelley, he used to work for us there,” Felts said. “He was a boy who would — when he was just real young in the Plaza — follow me around everywhere.”

In 1978, when Kelley turned 16, he finally started working for Felts at the theater. Kelley flat-out loved the work. He would help Felts out at the drive-in or the theater Felts purchased in Nevada. And when he was at school, he was the guy who was called upon to run the projector. Kelley continued to work at the Plaza over the next few years, even as he noticed the 50-year-old building falling into disrepair. Kelley said a hailstorm just about finished the roof, and in 1985 there was a fire next door that did a lot of smoke damage to the Plaza. Felts closed the business a year later.

Rising from ashes

Closing the theater where Kelley had seen “Star Wars” and “Grease” for the first time hit him pretty hard. “I would drive by and see it just sitting there,” he said. “When the marquee was taken off, they just put gray siding on the front. If you were from out of town, you wouldn’t even know it was a theater.”

Kelley said that if it hadn’t been for Kuhn, the Plaza would have been torn down. He said that in 1993, the roof was in danger of collapsing. That’s the year Kuhn began the work to restore the Plaza. She made presentations, searched for partners, procured a grant, solicited donations and eventually had her company, O’Sullivan Properties, sell the Plaza building to Lamar Community Betterment so the historic theater was owned by the residents of the town. Five years and almost $500,000 later, the Plaza was restored to its former glory. The tower out front was back up, the marquee was restored and the murals inside were cleaned.

During the restoration, Kelley did whatever he could. When the old roof had to be removed and the new roof was delayed, he helped cover the place in plastic. He also shoveled snow and ice off the balcony during inclement weather. ‘It’s in my blood’

When the Plaza reopened in 1998, Kelley volunteered to be the manager, even though he already had a full-time job at O’Sullivan Industries. Now he works his day job at O’Sullivan, and every night he takes up his post at the Plaza.

“You really have to love it to work as many hours as I do,” he said.

The Plaza is the first place Kelley goes when he gets off work. He credits Felts with teaching him everything he knows and passing on a love for the work. Felts said he will open the BarCo Drive-In during the summer. He sold his theaters in Nevada years ago, but he said he plans on running the drive-in as long as he can, finding that 70 years of the movie business isn’t enough.

“It’s in my blood, I guess,” Felts said. “I just enjoy the work.”

Kelley’s wife, Pam, works for Felts at the drive-in, and Kelley said he chips in there when he can. Kelley said that if he can’t see Felts every day, then he at least talks to him on the phone. They talk about — what else? — movies and the theater business. Felts said they cooperate during the summer months so their respective theaters don’t step on each other’s toes.

“We have the best of the indoor and the best of the drive-in,” Kelley said. “Not many towns have both, especially a town the size of Lamar. It’s pretty neat.”

Originally published online here: http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=163093&c=87