Hibbing High School Auditorium

Dale Connelly: We're at the historic Hibbing High School Auditorium.

Jim Ed Poole: This palace of a High School was built in 1920 at a cost of almost four million dollars. Everything about it is fantastic.

DC: The building communicates. It carries a message about the community's values. Education. The greatest public good. It's no mistake that Hibbing High School looks like a castle, inside and out.

(music: renaissance music underneath)

It has a solid marble grand staircase flanked by painted murals. There are hand-molded ceilings. Brass accents. It was called "the school with the gold doorknobs." It carries the weight and the feel of royalty … no doubt a bit confusing to new immigrants.

(sfx: three heavy knocks)

JP: (off mic) Who goes there?

DC: I say … I would like an audience with the King.

JP: We have no King here. Go away.

DC: The Queen, then, sir. An audience with the Queen.

JP: There is no Queen.

DC: Then whose castle is this?

JP: I will answer you with a riddle.

DC: Ugh. Another castle with a riddle!

JP: They for whom this castle was built ... Wear no crown. You cannot have an audience with them. And yet ... you cannot have an audience without them. Who are they? Answer my riddle and I will let you in.

DC: I will play no games with such a cheeky knave!

JP: Cheeky Knave?

(sfx: sword drawn)

Draw your sword then, sir! I am no knave! I am the school janitor!

DC: A school Janitor, you say? Pray, tell me, where is the school? I merely wish to register this urchin … my child.

JP: Truly I tell you sir, you stand before the school at this moment.

DC: This castle ... this palace ... this huge edifice ... is the school? And you are its janitor?

JP: I clean it from top to bottom ... every day.

DC: Then sir ... I kneel before you.

JP: (aside) While you're down there, would you get that spot?

(music: ends)

DC: There have been re-modelings and additions through the years, but the original 1920's building is mammoth all by itself. Five stories tall. Four hundred and sixteen feet across the front, with three huge perpendicular extensions spreading out behind!

JP: To a person flying overhead, the building resembled a large capital "E".

(sfx: JP vocal biplane sound fade up)

DC: No doubt the brave aviators of 1920 looked down on this new construction and knew instantly what it symbolized! That the village below valued Education. Equality. And Enterprise!

(sfx: JP vocal biplane sound stop)

JP: (aviator) Hey! Look at that big E! I told you it was Eveleth.

DC: (pause) What happened to the engine?

(sfx: JP vocal biplane sound fade out)

DC: Mining interests paid about 95 percent of the cost of the original building. Today, putting up a school like this with taxpayer money would be totally out of the question. Just imagine what sort of public hearing you would have simply to discuss the glass chandeliers alone!

JP: (clear throat) Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this hearing concerning expenses for the new school. I represent a group called "Taxpayers Against Lunacy." I'd like to read a prepared statement. (sudden crazed sobbing) What are you thinking? This is insane! Chandeliers in a High School? What about the spitwads? You must be mad! Mad, I tell you! Come to your senses. Please! (sob sob sob) (suddenly composed) And I thank you for your time.

DC: The glass in the chandeliers is from the former Czechoslovakia, from a manufacturing plant that was destroyed in World War II. So the glass is literally irreplaceable. Originally, each chandelier cost 15 thousand dollars. Today, each one is insured for a quarter of a million dollars. The hall has 1800 seats and a full sized Broadway stage that has launched many careers. It's modeled after the Capitol Theater, now gone forever, of Broadway, New York. How could you not dream big after playing this opulent hall? This is where Bob Dylan gave his first performance with a band. He did an impression of his idol, Little Richard, and it's reported that the audience laughed.

(music: sad violin)

And afterwards, back stage, away from bright lights and the crowds … he must have struggled with that and found a way to turn his disappointment into art …

JP: (melancholy)
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' (ha ha ha) Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,

Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley.
(searching) And it's a hard … it's a hard … it's a hard …
It's a hard pain in this hall. Naw.
(fade) It's a hard train gonna crawl. Uh uh. A hard chain on the wall ...

(sad violin end)

DC: He overcame it. So did many others who attended this school and went on to amaze the world. In the arts, in sports, business, politics … the Iron Range has provided a steady stream of bright minds and exceptional talents.

JP: And who knows how many more there are to come? How many will stand on the lip of mega-stardom … Future American Idols nurtured here … looking back wistfully to those formative days in the band, in the orchestra, in the plays, in the talent shows in an old school auditorium that brought more than a little bit of Broadway to the north woods.

Company B:

Give my regards to Hibbing
Remember me to Hull Rust mine.
Tell all the gang at Bobby Zimmerman's
That now's my time to shine!

Millions of bucks I'm earning,
but tell 'em I ain't gonna change
Give my regards to old Hibbing
and to that great big Iron Range.

Yes, give my regard to old Hibbing
And to that great big Iron Range.