This past weekend solidified my notion that Van Wert, Ohio, is indeed the arts capital of small towns, USA.\u00a0 The brand new Wassenberg Art Center, now located in the newly remodeled Armory Building held its grand opening.\u00a0 Congratulations to Hope Wallace and everyone associated with Wassenberg.\u00a0 It is without a doubt the most beautiful former armory building in the country.<\/p>\n
It will no doubt attract even more visitors than it has over the past 50 plus years.\u00a0 And with the unveiling of the David Humphreys Miller Collection of the \u201cFaces of Little Bighorn,\u201d people are sure to come to Van Wert from all over the region and country.\u00a0 Wassenberg Art Center is indeed a real visual arts showcase and Van Wert should be proud of it!\u00a0 Thank you Van Wert County Foundation.<\/p>\n
While Wassenberg was preparing and holding its grand opening, we at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center were having our premier concert of the year, featuring Trace Adkins Christmas concert.\u00a0 We had a packed house and I understand many left our concert afterward and took in what was remaining of the RSVP Wassenberg open house.\u00a0 Others attended Sunday afternoon\u2019s open house for the general public.<\/p>\n
This is quite a scenario for a city of 11,000 people and a county of 29,000.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know of many other similar communities who could boast of such a weekend of artistic value.\u00a0 Throw in the mix that the Van Wert Civic Theatre was presenting a stage production of My Three Angels<\/i> and Crestview High School was performing the musical Annie<\/i>.\u00a0 Phew!<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, the Civic Theatre\u2019s production goes through November 24.\u00a0 Off Stage Productions is also celebrating 10 years of dinner theater in Van Wert.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot of arts for our community!\u00a0 If you love the arts in a small town environment, you can\u2019t be much better served than in Van Wert, Ohio.<\/p>\n
We not only present the arts, but we do it well.\u00a0 Trace Adkins is a huge Country music star who is used to playing in large city arenas.\u00a0 With this Christmas tour, he decided he wanted to play smaller, more intimate venues that are most often found in smaller cities.\u00a0 Even at that, I believe Van Wert and the Niswonger may be the smallest on their tour.\u00a0 HOWEVER, after their performance Saturday night at the Niswonger, the performers and crew were singing the praises of our venue, staff and volunteers.<\/p>\n
Upon arriving at 8 Saturday morning, they were astonished to be met with a group of volunteers to help unload and set up the show.\u00a0\u201cWhere are the union workers?\u201d they asked.\u00a0\u201cWe use volunteers here,\u201d they were told.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t believe we would give them volunteers to unload, set up and load out a show of their magnitude.\u00a0The result?\u00a0They were back on the road an hour and 10 minutes before they expected.\u00a0They were elated and learned a lesson about Van Wert, Ohio.<\/p>\n
As we enter the Christmas season, we just keep it coming with world-class music and entertainment.\u00a0 The Sonos Hand bell Ensemble from San Francisco, Calif., comes to town on December 1.\u00a0 Then legendary singer, entertainer and TV personality Tony Orlando performs on December 7.\u00a0 Jazz saxophonist Dave Koz and Friends, featuring three more outstanding performers on stage with him, will perform on December 10.\u00a0 Perhaps some of you saw the PBS special on TV-39 out of Fort Wayne this past weekend.\u00a0Our own Chuck and Karen Koch were in the studio representing the Niswonger and plugging our concert with Koz & Friends.\u00a0 Finally, we have Christian and Nashville artists Point of Grace coming to finish out our Christmas season.\u00a0 They will be joined by our own Knight Vision from Crestview, adding background vocals to some of their beautiful Christmas arrangements.<\/p>\n
There is certainly no loss for the arts in Van Wert, both visual and performing.\u00a0 And we\u2019re only getting started!<\/p>\n
FIN\u00c9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This past weekend solidified my notion that Van Wert, Ohio, is indeed the arts capital of small towns, USA.\u00a0 The brand new Wassenberg Art Center, now located in the newly remodeled Armory Building held its grand opening.\u00a0 Congratulations to Hope Wallace and everyone associated with Wassenberg.\u00a0 It is without a doubt the most beautiful former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 13:13:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}