Dateline: July 18, 2002

Drive-in theater will re-open this summer

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

A new coat of paint is applied to the letters on the old drive-in theater in Clarendon in preparation for a re-opening later this summer.  Enterprise Digital Photo

Polish up the car, grab your sweetheart, and get ready for the return of an old tradition in Clarendon.

If all goes as planned, the Sandell Drive-In will again have Hollywood stars dancing across its screen later this summer after having been dark for 18 years.

John Earl Morrow is the new general manager for the drive-in and says his interest in re-opening the picture show stems from a Christian gathering he attended in Dallas several months ago.

While there, he stopped to eat at an Italian sandwich shop named Sandella’s. He made mention of the old Sandell to a man in the shop who said he would like to see a picture of the similarly named drive-in. After he returned home, Morrow did as the man asked and stopped by the drive-in on Hwy. 70 with a camera in tow.

“I’d driven by it a thousand times in all these years and never paid much attention to it,” Morrow said. “I came in the gate to take pictures and thought, ‘Man, it’d be neat if someone would open this.’”

In the days and months which followed, Morrow says a string of events and conversations repeatedly called his attention back to the drive-in. When he suggested that someone should buy the show and re-open it, the response was always the same, “Why don’t you do it?”

As Morrow began to explore the possibility of purchasing the Sandell, the clincher came when a relative sent him a card with a footprint on it that read, “Attempt something so large that failure is guaranteed unless God steps in.” The resemblance of the footprint to aerial photos of the drive-in was uncanny.

“I was definitely at the failure point, too,” Morrow said. “The bank wouldn’t loan the money, and it looked like I was going to lose all the escrow money I had put up to buy the property.”

Then an associate from out of town stepped in and put up the financing for the project.

Now, Morrow is proceeding with the work necessary to get the show going again and hopes it will give Clarendon a boost.

“This is one thing that can tie this community together,” he said. “Remember when everyone used to come up here to watch the show?”

The clean up has already begun with the name on the façade of the drive-in being repainted last week. Painters will soon put a fresh coat of pink paint – the same great color – on the aging theatre, and a new ticket booth will be installed later this week.

New projection equipment has been ordered, and a remodeling of the concession stand is underway. A new transmitter will allow move-goers to listen to the show on their car radio instead of hanging the speaker through a window.

“It’s mostly in pretty good shape,” Morrow said, giving credit to Gary Barnhill who built the Sandell in 1955 and named it for his two daughters – Sandra and Adele. “When he built it, he did it right. It wouldn’t be possible to open it today if he hadn’t.”

Morrow hopes to have the 300-car drive-in open by the end of August, but he knows it will be a challenge to make that deadline.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and I’m not an expert at some of this stuff [like hanging drywall],” he said. “But I know this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”