This afternoon, we're all pleased to be here to join in this memorial service for Louis
and all the folks. We are glad today that Algeria can be with us and be a part of this service.
You almost get the feeling today that there is someone nearby coaching you,
maybe having an idea about how this all ought to go, and I guess that's as it should be.
For many of us here at the University Church, Louis's folks was a fixture in our fellowship.
He was a man who was known, renowned for being just overwhelmingly in love with his wife.
For all of the other great things that he did, he did many great things. He was known as a man
who loved his wife. There is hardly anything greater that can be said about anyone. For
those of us that used to watch Louis walk into the town prior with Jared, and then watch them go
and find their booth and sit down for breakfast. Just kind of out of the corner of your eye,
watching them carry on conversation, he was a great treat. Because there are many different
arenas in our life, he did many of the greatest ones. From the stage where there is a triumphant,
glorious presentation that points out some marvelous aspect of life, love, and joy,
to the classroom where you share that which is most important to you, to those private moments
where you counsel your students and your staff around you. Those times when everything is going
absolutely right and other times when everything is wrong, those are great arenas.
But in the arena of promises and covenants, that's a great stage too. And we honor Louis today
for just how marvelous his life, his example was in the matter of loving his wife.
This morning, this afternoon, Gaston Bumper is going to leave us in prayer just a moment.
Jim Reynolds became ill. He is sick and is unable to attend. Charles Chewathan is going to take Jim's
place in the room room. Charles Nelson is going to lead us in our singing. You see that
Dr. Royce Money will be presenting a tribute to Louis Wolf. Adam Hister will also bring a tribute
from the theater faculty. And Dr. John Stevens has written a tribute also for Louis Wolf.
About eight days ago, we gathered for a funeral service for a great artist,
Tish Stevens. We talked there about how important it was to have a clear eye for what is good and
pure. From Matthew chapter 6 verse 22, the eyes will land through the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.
We borrow that again today at the passing of another great artist. We've had a great eye
for the light, and through his work brought light into the hearts of us all. Gaston.
Let us pray.
Dear Father, we thank you for the gift of life.
And in this moment, we thank you for the life of Louis Wolfs. We thank you, Father, because we
confess that you are the creator of the sustainer of life, and what a wonderful life you gave to
all of us through Louis Wolfs. We thank you for the legacy that he leaves. We thank you for the
creative genius that you gave him, and that he lived out in so many wonderful productions
at the ACV. We thank you, Father, for the integrity, the passion for excellence, the commitment to
produce theater that would uplift you and the values and principles that you have taught us to hold dear
in life. We thank you, Father, for those evenings of musical magic that Louis created for us
through the students and performers of those stages for so many years.
We honor you, and we glorify you, Father, because of what Louis was able to produce
on those stages, and we thank you for that. We thank you for his lifelong partnership
with charity, and we thank you for the work that they did together for so many years in the dinner
theaters for those wonderful experiences. Dear Father, be with us now, this time, as we remember,
as we celebrate the life of Louis, even as we mourn his passing, and we thank you for life,
especially for his great life with his father, and in your name and forever.
Louis was born on September 19, 2003 at a local medical center at the age of 77.
Louis was born on February 11, 1926, to Miller-Philmore and Bertha Parley-Bauer-Folkes in Burk,
Burnett, Texas. He graduated from Appalachian Christian University with a bachelor's degree,
and from the University of Southern California with a master's degree in Drunk. Louis was
professor of theater for a total of 44 years, 30 of those as the head of the theater department.
He married Geraldine Moran on December 15, 1949 in Appalachian, Texas. Louis was a member of the
University Church of Christ. Appalachian Christian University presented him with an honorary doctorate,
a fan arts degree, in 1990. Louis was pre-ceased by his parents and his sisters, Wilbur Chestnut,
and Elizabeth Jackson-Barmato. The survivors include his wife, Geraldine of Appalachian,
the brother-in-law, Tex Moran, and his wife, Jolene of Imperial Beach, California,
the nephew, Gary Jackson of San Angelo, Texas, and the niece, Mark Scott, the boss of Texas.
And we think it's appropriate to note that it would be fitting for the warrior gifts to
Appalachian Christian University, designated for Louis and Geraldine-Folkes in now.
There are, relatively only a few here, but a great many elsewhere and around the world
who upon learning of the passing of Louis-Folkes had to pause and perhaps look out the window
for a while to remember times and places in which he lived a large and significant in their lives.
Great teachers of like that. The eulogies don't make the man. The man makes the eulogies.
And none more so than those, the memories of whom stir our hearts to gratitude
for a life that made a good difference in ours. I was first introduced to those folks
through the appreciating eyes of Milton and Ted Starks, whose assessments in such matters
I hope have been high regard, and Louis in person did not disappoint. Sure, Adam, speaking of this
consulate professional and teacher in theater, his middle class was better than his students,
but sometimes grasped, but he kept reaching for another level. His constant passion for
good theater was ferocious, and his disdain for bad theater was withering.
Evidence that to me once within conversation in the office, he abruptly departed to go to
his school meeting and returned to me with a thick bullet that he had created of material
and editorials and personal comments by what he considered to be the ever-warring standards
of American film, TV, stage, and print media. I've seen the eye earlier spoken of in Louis'
books to size up the opportunity and the resources of students and staff and understanding
in the best possible sense that the play is delayed. He and I had many encounters,
some of them a several hostile or at least adversarial, ranging from special programming
budgets to the appalling chapel attendance records of some of his homecoming musical stars,
some of whom may be here today, some of whom are certainly elsewhere, and from such conversations
which never bloody and left neither of us out, friendship was formed, that he always had the
theatrical flair on me and kept me reaching. On one occasion outside of Dr. T's office
beneath the window and on the sidewalk after one of our such encounters,
Louis was entering the administration building as I was leaving, and he gave me a Shakespearean
flair bow that I could not duplicate and declared himself to be my most humble servant,
aspiring in me to be to respond that I was his most humble servant and I awkwardly tried to do
the same whereupon Louis fell to his knees to declare that he was the more humble servant
than me, leading me to my knees, and an argument that ensued and contended for several years
over which of us was the more humble, and the left of that particular warden,
both of us dressed in our suits flat on our faces on the sidewalk, grumbling,
only lately it occurred to me in that clever style of Louis's looks that he might have
awakened to that very warden and decided that before this day is up I will have Charles to
wait through the flair on his face on the sidewalk and try to himself to be my most humble servant.
That was followed in response around town to the amusement of Jerry to the heart of
my wife, Phyllis, and in various places around campus or several years thereafter.
Once Louis declared to me the fact is that we both protested too much that neither of us was
humble at all. What do you say about people like that? Certain nothing exclusive to your memories,
you only hope to trigger the enjoyment of such memories and others, each of us having our own
special remembrance of a man who was an extraordinarily driven, professional, dedicated man of high
expectations of others, but none so as he had of himself. Louis Wilkes reminds me of another great
figure in AC history, trying to start him to baptize me in response to preaching his single
life. Influence is important. Influence is important. We are grateful that especially in that sense
those walls will never pass away.
Now we sing to you.
You, me and Fred, you, you and to Jesus, for red lips have bled.
Dear God, I am with thee, oh, we, not the same. I am high, and my God, and you still
live in me. I pray that thee help me, and cause thee to stand, upheld by my gracious
son, behold, and cry. Thus, O God, of Jesus, and me, for it goes, I will not, I will not
desert to his foes. I am so bare, so then never to sin. I'll never, no, never, no, never
forsake.
There is a happy nation, built by the living God, for all of every nation, who sinned
and the whole. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire, oh, sire, when
I grew up in thee, a significant foundation, for that equal of throne, the Lord's
salvation, I'll never rule a stone. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire,
I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire,
oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to
sin. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire, oh, sire, when shall
I grow up in thee? With each very mortal and every army sick, with the Lord by the mortals,
the praises of his King. Oh, sire, oh, sire, I am more than used to sin. Oh, sire, oh,
sire, I am more than used to sin.
Some people transform a community in ways so profound that you cannot imagine it without
their influence. Dr. Lewis-Mulm's creativity, energy, and talent have had far-reaching impact
on ACU, Abilene, and Christianity in Yards where they were practiced. English poet Janet
Hirston Stewart wrote, There ought to be so many who are excellent, but there are so few.
Lewis-Mulm's folks pushed the standard higher for himself than his students. He expected
outstanding results from them, and they surpassed his expectation in performance, in staging,
and in character. He consistently demonstrated the excellence of few. Our community has been
greatly enriched by the powerful performances of Lewis-Grew from his students. He brought
the finest quality of York theater to Abilene, setting them amazingly high for those who
would follow. And yet, as he would so proudly tell them, the students did everything. They
built the laggish sets he designed. They sewed their own costumes, and they performed some
of the best works ever written for the theater to sew down crowds. With a verbal note, if a man
does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it's because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however major or far away.
Lewis-Folks, sometimes, marched to his own drummer, seeing a vision to his far beyond his day.
His complicated, movable stage sets were well ahead of their time. He saw the value bringing
such classics as Padilla and Malarque to this true grid West Texas community. He believed
we were rethinking people. A community that would value intellectual challenge
without a serious drummer cutting edge column. Even when his work far exceeded the collegiate
standards of the day, he strove for more. Lewis loved the Golden Age of Hollywood as much
for more than he loved the theater, and shared his vast knowledge of NGM studios and their
glamour of films with thousands of students who passed through his extended popular film appreciation
class. I believe Lewis's design excellence and his knowledge of film that I admired even more
were led to what Eddie and Charles have said, his love for the very talent of my Jerry.
Although for many years he worked long hours and dedicated much of his life to the theater,
anyone who knew me would never forget that Jerry was his highest priority
after his personal faith in God. They were truly a matched pair.
Lewis Folks was called the father of ACU theater, and he sparked a new generation
of theatrical excellence in which he was extremely proud, much like the father of
me and his children. His influence we felt on this campus and in this community far beyond
for many years to come. Over the years Lewis gained many honors. The most recent was presented
just a few days before his death. Lewis and Jerry were awarded only the second award to be done by
the ACU Centennial Commission. It is the John and Ruth Stevens Historical Preservation Award known
as the Cash Knife Award, named after the old Cash Knife ranch, which occupied in the late 19th
and early 20th century the very ground floor of the day, which was to be eventually the home
of Anthony Christian University. He was honored because of his heroic and pioneering work toward
preservation of the history of ACU and of Anthony Christian schools. This award is one of the first
official ACU Centennial awards to be given. Over their half century service to ACU Lewis and Jerry
carefully collected and preserved important memorabilia, which chronicles the development of
Christian Legion theater. Any of you who have been in their home have seen many of the photographs,
the props, and set models from Lewis's 187 ACU theater productions. Their efforts to preserve
the heritage of ACU theater continue to bless future generations. Recently when Lewis was
informed his award, while he was in the hospital, he said, and that's his quote, I want to encourage
our faculty members to remain true to their faith and to be excellent at their craft.
What a great testimony, what a wonderful legacy. I close the two brief personal stories about Lewis
and their scriptural reading. In 1991 when I became president, I asked Lewis to design the
informal receiving room in the presidential suite of offices and also to remodel our small
conference room. And as you might imagine, he did it with red flag. It was vintage Lewis with a little
of Juanita Tittle Pollard thrown in. And I will confess to you those early months after the remodeling
was done, this impressive ring of reading of Lewis, I wondered the time or two when it would
start revolving. It never did. I wondered when that huge bookcase would just kind of open up
somebody would come out from behind, but it never did. In the small conference room Lewis and I had
a few animated conversations about where the floor to ceiling mirrors were appropriate and
he insisted that they were and he was right. The days following Lewis's surgery back in the summer
came and I sneaked up to his room. I say that because it was past 50 hours. It was a precious time,
but I was treasured all of my life. To nobody's surprise, he was encouraging to Pam and me personally.
He told us how full of meaning his life had been and how grateful it was to God. He told us how much
he loved Jared and how gratifying their life together in the minute they see him. Then we had a prayer
together and then he insisted on showing us his new scholar. Pam protested, but it didn't seem to
slow it down. Paul in writing to the Thessalonian church addressed a problem that bothers all of us
and that's what happens to us when we die.
And he pinned the following words and I think they're appropriate here for another
subtle reason that Paul certainly did not have in mind, but the scene I'm about to describe
is a human greater proportion that Lewis folks never imagined.
I think you'll enjoy it. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep
or grieve like the rest of men in our own hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so
we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive and who are left
until the coming of the Lord will certainly not perceive those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the
Mark Angel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ arise first.
After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore,
encourage each other with these words.
I'm trying to get a picture of Lewis and Lewis loved surprising people.
He loved fast cars, cootles, leather pants, and women with seam toads.
I remember right after he got his new Mustang convertible, he was dying to take me for a ride
out. After I picked up my son from school, we dropped by and my son was nine or ten at the time.
Lewis said, get in, I'll take you for a spin. Well, when we got out on the Albany Highway,
he kind of looked over at his sideways and said, you know I can go zero to 80 and then he played.
I smiled and knowing Lewis well, I knew that this was a time to kind of divert things here and
began to protest a little bit when my son said, show me.
And Lewis did, but he didn't just show us 80, he showed us 90 and then he showed us 100 and I
was reaching for my tub which was back in the city limits and the car slowed down and Lewis
granded and my son said, let's do it again. Well, that was pretty much the speed that Lewis
lived his life as he set his sights on creating extraordinary theater and living an extraordinary
life. In his heyday and ride up to retirement, he was a whirlwind and he was so grateful to his
beloved wife, Jerry, and his parents for their encouragement to do his work. They said, go do
your work and he was a showman and he played that to the hilt. I remember in 1975 when we were all
gathered around for the unveiling of the 1776 set mom. You know everything about Lewis's set mom,
as you know these are something to behold. It was draped in fabric, everything was very mysterious
and he began talking about the play and what the play meant and the importance of the bicentennial
and John Adams and Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and then he'd slowly pull off the
fabric with all of us applauding him out of it because he had a gift.
He had a gift for inspiring.
Stick with me, I'll make it. Hang with me.
Inspired his students and his patrons and all the productions he directed.
He would love, he knows I hate speaking in public and he loved it. He would just get up
when anything went wrong, jump out on stage and just start talking to the audience and he knows
I would rather eat a rock than do that. So he's loving this moment right now. You know Lewis
fell in love with the plays and the characters. I think he saw himself and his work and his future
in those plays because he understood their size and their mission. He was King Arthur
and Sewell Theater was his ex-calendar. He had to do the impossible to create great theater
in Cowboy, Texas town. I can only imagine that Arthur's speech must have sounded a little
like it was his own. Hearing the words, I passed to Square and saw there a sword rising from a stone.
Now thinking very quickly, I thought it was a war memorial. The square was deserted so I decided
to save myself a journey and barred. I tried to pull it out. I failed. I tried it again. I failed
again. Then I closed my eyes and with all my force tried one last time and lo, it moved in my hand.
Then slowly it slid out of the stone and I heard a great roar. When I opened my eyes, the square
was filled with people shouting, long live the king, long live the king. And that was Lewis
and the crowd who filled Sewell Theater and labeled the Abilene Civic Center. That's how he became
King. He never knew he would be, but he was King. He wanted to be the wisest, most heroic,
most splendid King who ever sat on any throne. This was the time for Lewis Wolves and for him
and his theater to reach the stars. His actors and his techies were shining nights galloping
around the countryside like angels in armor, sword-swinging apostles battling to snap out people.
Some people thought it's naive. It's adolescent. It's fally. But no, it was marvelous.
And while he loved his shining nights and his beautiful ladies, we were to hear for years
later about all the legends of the past, of the great Donna Rankin, of the great Gary Hood,
of Dale Ward. In fact, his list of greats could go on and on. I look at here and I see a few of
them sitting here today. He could draw great talent to himself, and together they would create artistic
triumph, which brings me to Manful Machiave, as no tribute to Lewis would be complete without
mentioning this possibly his greatest production, because he was ACU's dying key motif, battling
many a windmill, because he saw things not as they were, but as they should be, and he had
his faithful sonshows by his side of whom I was one, faithfully joining him on the next adventure,
because we knew how important it all was. In fact, I remember the painting scenery on Lewis's
Seven Brides or Seven Brothers, until they yelled and said, get off stage, get your costume on,
we're opening the show, starting. It was that unstoppable tenacity that I can feel it in myself
to this day. It's to his legacy that we owe this brilliant new theater that we're able to work in
that bears his and Jerry's name, a Christian theater that continues the pursuit of excellent,
because that was his ultimate quest, and we celebrate today the life of a man who dreamed
the impossible dream, and that was Elizabeth's.
You're making that sound with speed and more, you're making that sound with speed and more,
and thus are our path of thought, and thus are our path of thought. We're marching to Zion,
youth of beautiful Zion, we're marching up to Zion, but you don't see our blood.
Let those who refuse to sing will never do our God, but children of the heavenly king,
but children of the heavenly king, they see their flesh and blood, so stormy, so joyous of God.
We're marching to Zion, youth of beautiful Zion, we're marching up to Zion, but you don't see our blood.
Let those who refuse to sing will never do our God, but children of the heavenly king,
but children of the heavenly king, they see their flesh and blood, so stormy, so joyous of God.
We're marching to Zion, youth of beautiful Zion, we're marching up to Zion, but you don't see our blood.
Let those who refuse to sing will never do our God, but children of the heavenly king,
but children of the heavenly king, they see their flesh and blood, so stormy, so joyous of God.
We're marching to Zion, youth of beautiful Zion, we're marching up to Zion, but you don't see our blood.
John Stevens has written this, this is attributed to Lewis Folkes.
When Lewis Folkes announced he retired January 1, 1991 as theater director,
consternation settled in because he was ACU theater.
A review of Folkes' record covering some 41 years caused the census.
Lewis enrolled as a freshman in ACU in the spring of 1945.
He declared that his love affair with ACU began in his very first production,
Mooreborn, for which he served on the stage crew.
From that humble beginning, and with some time out for graduate study and work on the west coast,
he produced 187 shows from 1948 to 1990.
Records showed there were more than 500,000 paid admissions to see his productions.
The ACU theater brought in a total of more than $2,000,000 during that tenure.
Out of that, he paid all expenses and did not have to call on the general budget of ACU for funds.
Something the president had done.
Of course, the great contribution ACU made to his program was making available to young students
of great talent to perform and enrich their education by being under his tutelage.
A major factor in his success at Holy Christian University was his marriage in 1949 to Ms. Geraldine Walgore.
He has said he might have been subject to an invitation from elsewhere, and had not been for his devotion to his partner,
sustaining, and calling, which Jerry was.
Not only was Louis Volks a master set designer, director, and producer, he was also an amazing innovator.
He served as technical director for the first city song in 1957.
He was co-designer for the first homecoming musical for Wizard of Oz in 1958.
In 1967, he started a children's theater program.
In 1971, after converting Sewell Auditorium to Sewell Theater, he introduced the first dinner theater with a production of Once Upon a Matrix.
Jerry designed the first of many fabulous venues for the occasion.
In the summer of 1990, he began another tradition by producing and designing Shakespeare's Othello in the Garmin and Judy Beach of Amphibia.
All of Louis's innovations are wildly successful today.
Louis considered theater his Christian ministry.
As Rex Cocker pointed out, students have been deeply moved spiritually by his devotion to Christian standings
and webbed together with the cast and crew meant for devotionals for rehearsal or show.
Louis started the fine tradition of theater devotionals, which continue today.
In 1990, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously upon recommendation of President Bill T.
to bestow the honorary doctor of fine arts upon the longtime ACU theater director.
If ever an individual earned an honorary doctor, Louis Faulks did.
The climax of his life, which will carry the Faulks' name into ages to come,
is that the theater in the spectacular new Williams Performing Arts Center is aptly named Faulks Theater,
a lasting tribute to a magnificent name.
I appreciate that tribute.
In just a few moments, we'll close. The service family and friends want to invite any of you who are here
if you'd like to come to the Universal Church Activity Center, which is right south of the building.
If you'd like to go there to tell stories, to have some dessert, bring a little coffee,
listen to some stories, always an audience is necessary, then you're certainly invited to do that for a bit.
It is a day for stories, a day for remembering.
As we close today, I'm reminded that this has been a great production. God has opened up the world.
It was a great show. It was a great show.
And so many of us got to watch the show that was supposed to be.
The show's closed. The set has been struck.
But it will move from where it's been on the road to where it will be showing, apparently,
not on the Broadway, but on the Broadway.
Close in front of God. It's been a good show.
It's brilliant.
Dear Lord and Father, I thank you today for Louis Wilkes' wife,
for the standards that he had and called for decency,
and asked the creative juices and energies of the human heart to be focused on that which made it more noble and not less.
Father, I thank you for the love of his life. Jerry and Howard, with their marriage,
gave a living demonstration to all of his students of what true love was.
Father, I thank you today for those who loved him so dearly,
for the family that was related to him by blood and marriage,
and for the family that he adopted,
for those children who gathered around him.
Father, we're thankful for his way of extending his influence into our church,
showing in his heart the generosity of Christ.
Father, I'm thankful for his standards, which called us all to be better.
And to not settle for what was mediocre,
but to stretch on to what was glorious and excellent.
And now, Father, we pray that your richest blessings will fall on Jerry,
and she will be comforted today,
that all those who hold Lewis' memory in their hearts
will find great comfort in the legacy that is also a part of their heart.
Bless us now, Father, in Christ's name.
The frightening place this world abounds,
the frantic pace of changing paths,
where no one plays familiar roles,
but in these days one promises holes.
I can ride the morning winds, and you are there.
I can sail the winest seas, and you are there.
I can find the darkest darkness, and you are there.
O Lord, I can never be lost from you.
You search me now and know my heart, then show me how to do my part.
Do walk the way you'd have me go, and if I stray more, I still know.
I can ride the morning winds, and you are there.
I can sail the winest seas, and you are there.
O Lord, I can never be lost, never lost.
From you.
The Lord bless you and give you, the Lord lift his countenance upon you,
and give you peace, and give you peace, O Lord, let his face shine upon you.
And be gracious unto you, and be gracious.
The Lord be gracious, gracious unto you.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
