Years of Dedication Have Made the
Dream Come True — Almost
Change is in the wind in the Lompoc Valley. You can feel it in Old Town and in the conversations happening at kitchen tables and community meetings across North County. And soon, if the people behind one of Santa Barbara County’s most ambitious cultural projects have anything to say about it, you’ll be able to feel it the moment you step through the doors of a fully restored, reborn Lompoc Theatre when it reopens in conjunction with its centennial year.
What began as a grassroots preservation effort — weekend barbecues on the corner, small donations, sheer stubbornness — has grown into an $18.9 million capital campaign that has already raised more than $12 million. This includes a $2.285 million California State grant, a $1 million commitment from the John C. Mithun Foundation, sizable contributions from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians (including an additional $500,000 matching grant announced this week), and other local organizations, and more than 5,000 individual donors, many who gave $100 or less.
But the numbers don’t capture what the project truly represents. To understand that, you have to understand where it started: with a 10-year-old boy, a Saturday matinee, and a performance that changed everything.
The Boy from Lompoc
Mark Herrier grew up in Lompoc in the 1950s and ’60s, when the theater was the undisputed center of town. Kids were dropped off on Saturday mornings with a dollar in their pockets — enough for popcorn, a hot dog, a soft drink, and an all-day escape into cartoons and double features. When he was 10 years old, his mother dragged him to a showing of The Music Man. While watching the film, his reluctance transformed to reverence…