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In tiny Pinehurst, Christmas program is big deal By Peter Wong PINEHURST -- Like most schools, Pinehurst School stages a Christmas program. But unlike what happens at most schools, every pupil has a role in the cast -- and sometimes more than one. All pupils take part for up to nine years. They perform in (mostly) original plays that feature a mixture of dialogue, dancing and traditional and original holiday songs and music. The number of performers is always dwarfed by the size of the audience that watches each year. The Christmas program is one of the major social events in this one-school district -- which this year has 30 students -- and in this mountain community more than 20 miles east of Ashland. For Ben Ackles, one of three eighth-graders at Pinehurst, his performance last week in "All in the Christmas Family" was his second during his school years -- and his final holiday performance. After eighth grade, Pinehurst students attend high school in Ashland. As kindergartners in 1990, he and Nick Badenhop performed in the same play. Ben had a bit role then as a "holly dog," but in last week's production, he was Whitey Christmas and Nick was Jiminy "Jim" Christmas, two of its leading roles. "I thought it was fun," Ben said. "You cut down on school work to get to do this. It was a pretty good role, but it was not easy." The play a light-hearted look at a holiday reunion of the extended "Christmas family" on a Nebraska farm. Zach Cohen, the other eighth-grader at Pinehurst, had a starring role as patriarch Clarence Christmas. His mother, Tracy, said pupils were assigned roles around Thanksgiving and were expected to memorize their lines quickly. "They don't let us know what they're working on," she said. "But they practice at home and have to get it down in time -- and they do." Like the other Christmas programs in Pinehurst's repertoire for the past 17 years, it was written by Sam and Pat Alvord. Pat Alvord is a teacher at Pinehurst. "I know all the children well, and I try hard to come up with something that suits their personalities and abilities," she said. "Of course, the older children will have much more difficult parts than they had previously. "I try hard to make the students shine on stage, have their parents be pleased, make everybody feel good -- and give them all good memories." The Christmas repertoire consists of eight plays, so a pupil who completes Pinehurst School will have performed in two versions of one of the plays. "About 1993, we realized that we didn't have any more good ideas and we started recycling them," Pat Alvord said with a laugh. "But I always write the plays geared to the children we have in a particular year. So this year's play was based on 1990's, with some revisions." Last week's production featured a rap number, for instance, but Alvord said it was written by another teacher and differed from the rap in the original 1990 play. The annual holiday production drew people from miles around, even those with no children at the school, and most stayed for the dessert potluck and socializing afterward. Pinehurst School officials and parents were successful in a 1995 effort with other isolated school districts, most of them east of the Cascades, to win from the Oregon Legislature an exclusion from a 1991 state requirement to merge with districts that offer high school. Tracy Cohen echoed what many parents and guests say they like about the Christmas play: They see it as a reflection of what they consider a close-knit and caring community. "Everyone has a part in it, and no one's part is more important than another's," she said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA