BARC sees Subaru 'Share the Love' donation

Apr. 21—BLUEFIELD — The Bluefield Arts and Revitalization Corp. (BARC) received a financial boost Thursday, thanks to Cole Subaru.

As part of Subaru's "Share the Love" event, dealership owner Bill Cole presented Rob Linkous, BARC President, with a check for $7,200.

"It's about community, it's about being involved," Cole, who is also a member of the BARC board, said of helping out. "It is a great pleasure to have Rob Linkous here. BARC is doing great things downtown in Bluefield, bringing the arts to our children in particular and the community in general."

Cole emphasized the importance of the arts and how they have transformed other communities, like Asheville, N.C., which is thriving based on the proliferation of opportunities related to the arts.

"The arts are so much of who we are as a citizenry, a culture," he said. "We look at all the great things happening in downtown Bluefield and the comeback in downtown Bluefield and you look at places like Asheville ... the arts come in and the whole community is thriving ... I love to think of Bluefield as a little Asheville."

Cole said the arts is so important that his friend Randall Reid-Smith, Curator for the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, adds an "A" for arts to STEM to create STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math).

"It is great to be involved with BARC," Cole said.

Linkous said BARC was "really excited" to be the recipient of the Share the Love event.

"They have been kind enough to make us one of their local sponsors," he said. "This is something that really helps us to bring certain events and certain parts of our mission to the public, and help us reduce charges on events and entrance fees or even do a free event."

For example, he said, the Granada is offering a free screening of the film about the famous Northfork High School Blue Demons basketball team that won seven of their 10 state basketball championships during the 1970s, and a run of eight straight championship into the 1980s.

That documentary will be shown at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

"It is a great program that runs through West Virginia PBS (Public Broadcasting System)," he said of the documentary.

"Part of our mission is also live performances," he said, and it includes big events like on May 6 at the Granada when the Charleston Ballet (the State Ballet of West Virginia) will perform. "That is going to be an exciting Saturday afternoon performance and we look forward to bringing that to the young people and adults in our community."

Linkous said BARC also tries to have live music at either the Granada or the Bluefield Arts Center at least once a month.

First-run movies are also shown at the Granada and will soon be expanded to the Raleigh Street Cinemas, located on the bottom floor of the Granada building facing Raleigh Street.

"We will be announcing our opening date here shortly," he said of the new cinema complex, which will include two theaters. "That will be new state-of-the-art twin cinemas which have about 60 seats per cinema. That way, we will be able to have three first-run movies on a weekly basis."

Another advantage with the twin cinemas, he said, is that if a movie is doing great in the smaller theaters, the film can be shown at the Granada, which seats 500.

"That gives us the ability to offer the public what they want to see and make it a really nice experience for them," he said.

Linkous said the smaller cinemas also open up the opportunity for film "festival" events, something BARC is already looking into, and special showings of movies.

The Granada was one of only 500 theaters in the country to have an early screening of the acclaimed documentary, "Little Richard: I Am Everything," earlier this month.

Linkous said that movie would not have been shown in Mercer County at all if not for the Granada.

Donations like the "Share the Love" event make a "tremendous amount of difference" in overall performances and cost basis, he said.

"We have to have it (community support) in order for us to grow and reach the mission we have," he said.

— Contact Charles Boothe at cboothe@bdtonline.com

Contact Charles Boothe at cboothe@bdtonline.com