Drive-in drive nets 1,500 names

by ANNE KAZMIERCZAK Register Reporter
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Interest in the 54 Drive-in in Gas has grown beyond the immediate area.
Caleb Johnson, the ten-year old boy who started a petition drive to keep the drive in open after its closure was announced in mid-October was featured on Pittsburg-based National Public Radio affiliate KRPS Friday, said his mom, Deidra Johnson.
Anthony Moreno, on air host at the station, read about Caleb and the 54 Drive-in the Iola Register, he said.
Moreno said he was surprised to learn of the drive-in’s closure, as he had featured it in an on-air piece in the summer of 2008.
“When I interviewed the regional manager, he was pretty proud of the fact he was going to keep it open,” Moreno said.
The June 18, 2008 piece can be heard over the Web on the station’s archives, www.krps.org.
In the piece, B&B Theatres regional manager Jason Foster told Moreno “there was no need to worry about the 54 drive in” and “there’s no plans on getting rid of it ever” and that the community need not “worry about it shutting down.”
“It seems like every year we get more and more people who haven’t been to a drive in before,” said Foster on the radio piece.
A lot can change in a year.
“We will not reopen,” General Circuit manager Dan Van Orton told the Register after the drive-in’s closure was announced.

DEIDRA JOHNSON said she recently mailed more than 1,500 signatures to B&B theaters owner Robert Bagby on Oct. 31 to try to change his mind.
There were so many names on the forms, Johnson said, “We stopped counting. They were writing on the back and in the margins.”
Johnson also spoke to Elmer Bills, co-owner of B&B. When she asked him what could be done to save the drive-in, “He told me he thought it was already torn down.”
But the Johnsons are undeterred.
“When I sent the petition, I wrote a letter asking them to please contact me and set up a meeting in Iola” about keeping the drive-in open, she said.
She hasn’t heard back.
Moreno, like Johnson, tried contacting B&B Theatres owners — but got no response.
“I did get an e-mail from their general manger that said they didn’t have anything to say about it,” he said.
Johnson said since the Register’s article appeared, variations have been reprinted in newspapers in Chanute, Fort Scott and Independence, and she has received supportive phone calls from members those communities.
“People continue to call us, asking to put their names on the petition or to pass out petitions. We’re trying to get as many people to call (B&B Theatres owners) as possible,” Johnson said.
Supporters have hung a banner near the drive-in with Bagby’s office number to facilitate that effort.
“Just call and leave messages in support of the drive-in staying open and ask them to please come and talk to our community,” Johnson said. “We’re just trying to do anything we can to keep the drive-in open.”