Knox at one–year–old

He wears a different military uniform every week when he is teaching WWII history each Wednesday at The Shepherd’s Center of Columbia.

Bob Knox says he is a conservator of WWII memorabilia. Many people have given him their uniforms to keep rather than throwing them away. “The uniforms are kept upstairs in my home where I have a cedar storage area that is nine feet deep by 27 feet long,” Knox said.

Knox has acquired a wide selection of patches, insignia, badges, and other military items but no weapons. He spent 42 years in the SC National Guard and retired as a sergeant first class in 1998. Twenty–two years of that time he played trombone in the Guard band.

Knox plays at a show to honor WWII veterans Knox is a talented musician, a husband, father of two children, an ex–radio announcer, and a would–be writer. Bob Knox has found his talents and continues to use them after retirement. After working for 33 years for Southern Bell and AT&T his time is now filled with playing trombone and/or leading several bands, arranging music, traveling with his wife, Mary, and taking a course in writing each week from PrimeTimes.

Knox was born in Walterboro, SC and graduated from high school in 1957. As a teen he worked for radio station WALD in his hometown. He married Mary when he was 19, and she was 17. He played trombone in the high school band and organized a band.

Knox playing at the Elks Club in Walterboro in 1956 Knox recalls his first gig in the 1950s. It was at a BPO Elks Club and each band members was paid $5 for playing that evening.“I learned to play the piano so I could arrange music. Arranging takes a whole range of musical knowledge and skill as to how each instrument sounds and what it can do. Each instrument has its own place in an orchestra and the arranger finds that place,” said Knox. “There is no badly written melody that a good arranger cannot make sound better.”

Knox with his trombone Ralph Keogh a WWII and Korean War veteran is one of Knox’s mentors who has encouraged him to keep on with his music. Knox also gets his inspiration from many different sources. His favorites are Glenn Miller, Nelson Riddle, and Henry Mancini. Knox is now playing in several different bands including the German Oomph Pa Pa Band which performed the last Sunday of the SC State Fair, and his own Blue Serenade Band.

He has traveled with his wife, Mary, to England, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Nova Scotia in an effort to spend his children's’ inheritance. Bob Knox also sings with The Bleating Sheep with his wife and other members at The Shepherd’s Center of Columbia.

A scene from Actors Theatre of SC — Where is it now? By Ceille Baird Welch

Actors Theatre of South Carolina, Chris Weatherhead and Clarence Felder, where are they now?

They’re all over everywhere, but most importantly, they’re right here, appearing often in Richland County Public Library’s Bostic Auditorium as the library’s Literary Artists in Residence. At 3 o’clock October 30, in the Bostic, Actors Theatre will present The Revenge of Colonel Rhett , a new interactive piece written by Felder for pirate–enthusiasts young and old. And as are all RCPL presentations, the show is free to the public.

Originally headquartered in Columbia, Actors Theatre of SC, one of the few Actors Equity Guest Artist Theatre Companies in the state is now headquartered in Folly Beach. The group works with artists and actors statewide and many Columbians are among them, including Dave Reed and Lee O. Smith.

This month, Actors Theatre showcased a monumental production at The Sottille Theatre in Charleston. “We worked on it for a year and a half,” Chris Weatherhead said.

In a mix of film and stage, ATSC brought to life South , an intriguing discovery, a new play set just outside of Charleston on the eve of the Civil War. South , or Sud as it was called in France, was written by French/ American playwright Julian Green in the early 1950s and was originally performed in Europe. Its only American performance was in an obscure theatre in Brookland many years ago. 

Green’s characters, northern and southern, are shown as simply people, conflicted, and hating the thought of an ominous tomorrow. Black southerners are given an identifiable humanity that was in the 1950s an unaccustomed stage portrayal. Chris Weatherhead and Clarence Felder, with their uncanny knack for recognizing local talent, have filled these roles with actors and actresses who know the feelings and who could give any Broadway team a run for its money.

Felder and Weatherhead have also added the intricate film portion, and have polished the many facets of South – homelessness, love, war, slavery, religion, homosexual attraction, and death–until Green’s play glows with a frightening brilliance. Hopefully, the production will soon make its way to a Columbia stage.

ATCS has presented a number of acclaimed Spoleto productions and is on The SC Arts Commission’s Community Tour. This December in Moncks Corner and St. George, the company will begin touring a children’s musical of my own. The show, A Rainbow of a Different Color , developed several years ago with partial funding provided by a grant from The SC Arts Commission and The National Endowment for the Arts, was premiered by ACTS in Madison, Georgia, and is additionally booked for a spring performance in The Folly Beach Theatre Festival.

South