VALPARAISO — Valparaiso, Valparaiso; they love their Valparaiso.
Those are a variation of the lyrics four actors will sing in the mini-musical “Valparaiso,” a fundraiser for the Heritage Museum of Northwest Florida to honor Valparaiso’s 100th anniversary.
Barbara Palmgren, the chairwoman of the board of trustees for the Heritage Museum, said it will replace the museum’s key fundraiser, Night at the Museum, which wasn’t socially distanced enough for pandemic times.
“We said, ‘Well, we just can't let this go. We've got to do something special for Valparaiso,’” Palmgren said. “Because it was their 100th year, they had these beautiful signs everywhere, and unless you would wander into Valparaiso, you wouldn't see the signs. I thought, ‘This way, we might be able to get a few more people understanding the value of this wonderful city that we live in.’”
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Palmgren and three other actors will perform “Valparaiso” at A Night to Remember at 6 p.m. Saturday at Rocky Bayou Country Club at 600 Golf Course Drive in Niceville. The event will also include dinner and a performance by Mike and Ellen Sheppard on the hammered dulcimer.
Tickets are $80. To register and pay, call 850-678-2615. For more information, visit heritage-museum.org.
“Valparaiso” wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Palmgren.
The former speech and drama teacher wrote the mini-musical over the course of three months. While she lives in Shalimar, Palmgren has a special love for the twin cities — Niceville and Valparaiso — after teaching at Niceville High School and Ruckel Middle School until she retired in 2002.
Yes, creating it was a lot of work, but Palmgren really enjoys that type of thing, she said. She once wrote a play called “Shalimar Shack” to help save the Shalimar Pointe golf course from bulldozers almost a decade ago.
“People enjoyed the play and they said, ‘You ought to consider doing some writing,’ so actually, I am a published author; I've written two books,” Palmgren said. “So writing, it comes naturally to me now, particularly to do something like this. This is just a lot of fun for me. I'm not worried about having to be sure I get every footnote right in the bibliography. And working with the other three people that were generous enough to say, ‘OK, I will act in this play,’ (is) just so fantastic.”
Valparaiso became a city in 1921, so they chose four key people who influenced the city as the characters in the musical: John Perrine, James Plew, Addie Lewis and Lula Edge.
Mike McMain, who acted in Palmgren’s “Shalimar Shack,” will portray Perrine, the city’s founder. He is a baritone who has been singing since he attended Choctawhatchee High School, and he now plays guitar in a garage band called Rewind 74 and at Shalimar United Methodist Church.
“It’s always wonderful to celebrate any centennial that happens,” McMain said. “We’ve had several that have happened in this area — Okaloosa County School District turned 100 recently, the Fort Walton Beach Woman’s Club; now Valparaiso is turning 100. Those are all great milestones to celebrate.”
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And McMain, a Fort Walton Beach resident, feels a connection to Valparaiso.
“I’m a military brat,” he said. “My father was in the Air Force. When we returned from the Philippines in ’67, I went to Ruckel when we lived on base. Then I transferred to Pryor. I do have ties to Niceville and Val-P because I used to go through it every day in seventh grade.”
Perrine is the one who first saw potential in the area, McMain said.
“It had not been developed at all, so he made arrangements to purchase the 15,000 acres that later became Valparaiso, Niceville and Eglin Air Force Base Reservation,” McMain said. “The whole play is fun. It’s actually going to be a mini-history lesson. It will give you a lot of insight as to how Val-P got its name, how it got developed, how it got started and some history as to what people paved the way in important parts of the city.”
Ken Walsh will portray Plew, who established the Valparaiso Bank, Valparaiso Inn and Chicago Country Club of Valparaiso. He was also responsible for the creation of what would become Eglin Air Force Base, Palmgren said.
“Both Perrine and Plew are from Chicago, so if you go to Valparaiso, you'll find that there are a lot of city streets named; one of them is named Chicago, and, of course, the famous Lincoln Park in Chicago,” Palmgren said. “You see this strong Chicago influence in the beginning years of Valparaiso.”
Susan Page will portray Lewis, a teacher and principal who was instrumental in the development of the Okaloosa County school system. Lewis School in Valparaiso is named after her.
“(Page) is delightful, and she almost looks like Addie Lewis,” Palmgren said. “We will have a beautiful picture of Addie Lewis and of Lula Edge, which we will unveil. We will also unveil a picture of the Valparaiso Inn. It will be a magical evening.”
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Palmgren will portray Edge, a Niceville postmistress and Okaloosa County School Board member who helped save Edge Elementary School in Niceville. She is excited about the play, because they haven't done anything like it before, she said.
“I'm just thrilled we're going to be able to see some wonderful people in our audience,” Palmgren said. “The mayor is going to be there with some council members. Lanny Corbin is going to be there representing Niceville with another board member. We have some just outstanding people that I think will really particularly treasure the performance of ‘Valparaiso.’ ”
Scott Stone, the music director, will also provide guitar accompaniment throughout the performance.
“We're going to be using songs that were famous throughout the era that people are familiar with, that I changed the wording to,” Palmgren said. “So it becomes just a lot more fun and pertinent to us.”
One of those songs is “We’re In the Money.” It is featured twice, firstly when Plew leases the Valparaiso Airport and 1,500 acres of land to the U.S. government, which spawned today's Eglin Air Force Base.
“You see (Plew) on the phone; he's talking, ‘Oh, how wonderful,’ ” Palmgren said. “He walks back, and joining him on stage is John Perrine, who has a beautiful voice. (Plew) looks at (Perrine), he says, ‘I think we're going to be OK. We're in the money.’ And (Perrine) goes, ‘We're in the money?’ and they start singing the song.”
“I think the audience will enjoy that because they'll be familiar with the song the second time around.”
The theme song, though, is “Valparaiso.” In it, they sing, “Valparaiso, Valparaiso, we love our Valparaiso; we’ll toast our Valparaiso.”
And they will. They will toast to their Valparaiso at the dinner theater, Palmgren said.
“To the next 100 years,” she said.
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