We revisit a special Alumni Spotlight from May 2021, where we celebrated two remarkable storytellers, Tom Weatherston (NAHS Faculty 1953-91) and Melissa Combs (FCHS 1975). Tom’s legacy in our school system and Melissa’s journey in the performing arts have left an unforgettable mark on so many lives. Their stories remind us of the power of storytelling to shape our lives and connect us across generations.
Since this article was first published, we are saddened to share that Tom Weatherston passed away earlier this year. We honor his memory and the lasting impact he made on our community.
Join us in revisiting their incredible journeys.
Excerpt from the May 2021 Legacy Ledger (Issue 9):
At the core of the two profiles below, there is one wonderful word: storytelling. It’s a skill set for many. It’s a career for some. To be a good storyteller has been groomed in our DNA for countless generations, just as important as hunter/gatherer, provider or parent.
Storytelling is at the heart of the performing arts. If you’re like many of us who cherish our years in the NAFC school system, chances are that storytelling was one of the key reasons.
Hundreds, even thousands of alumni from both New Albany and Floyd Central can cite one single name: Tom Weatherston, who elevated the quality of storytelling and the rigorous commitment to doing it well, in our school system. His career began here in 1953, the same year that I was born.
Melissa Combs came to Floyd Central in the fall of 1971 and over the next four years, her experiences in the performing arts were a total game-changer in her life. It was the beginning of a pathway to her entire career.
Rex Bickers, FCHS ’70, guest editor for Alumni Spotlight
——————————————-
Tom Weatherston, NAHS Faculty (1953-91)
In Memoriam: Since the original publication of this article, we are saddened to share that Tom Weatherston passed away on February 4, 2024.
Tom Weatherston graduated in 1947 from Jefferson High School (Ohio), about an hour northeast of Cleveland. He enrolled at nearby Hiram College, where the showboat Majestic was his real education. His summers on the showboat introduced him to almost every job in this self-contained traveling theatrical world. It’s the subject of the video mentioned above.
After three riverboat summers, 1951 brought big changes: marriage, graduation from Hiram and the draft. As conflict engulfed Korea, Congress brought back the Selective Service and Tom served two years in the Army. Even while enlisted, Tom was in various “soldier shows”. After his military service ended, Tom was able to re-connect with a playwright from Louisville, an acquaintance from his riverboating days on the Ohio. The friendship led to introductions throughout Kentuckiana. That included getting his name in the hands of New Albany’s superintendent, Harry Davidson. A job opened up, unexpectedly in August 1953 as an English teacher, and the 68 year adventure began.
It’s hard to put a timeline on what Tom built over the next four decades. What he demanded of his students in theatre was always exceeded by what he demanded of himself. In the early years, he extended himself to the Clarksville Little Theatre and the Upward Bound (Great Society) Theatre Project in Bloomington. When Floyd Central opened, he split himself in half for six years and directed major productions at both schools. He was driven to do big shows and little ones and everything in between. There were grand Broadway musicals, but also 22-minute productions that traveled to… and unloaded and packed back up, eight times in a given day, for grade school audiences. Dearest to his heart perhaps was “the Classroom Theatre”, quite literally a performance space (in the Annex, second floor) with seating for 90 students. Students performed for their schoolmates, doing one act in a single period, spread out over multiple days in one week. In the course of a school year, virtually every student at NAHS got the chance to see two entire plays.
His career spanned 38 years in the NAFC schools. He never stopped innovating. He initiated spring break student trips to New York, attending actual Broadway musicals. Ordinary superlatives just cannot describe the foundations he built, the legacy of excellence he left, the productions he directed from the grand and glorious to the small and intimate.
The accolades and honors are almost too numerous to list. In 1986, the NAHS Theatre department established the Weatherston Award Scholarship. The Arts Council of Southern Indiana presented a “Lifetime Achievement Award” to him in 2007. In 2008, the Theatre Arts classroom was designated the “Tom Weatherston Classroom Theatre. He was inducted into the NAHS Hall of Fame in 2009.
A widower for 37 years, Tom celebrated birthday number 92 last week with his two sons, Doug and Rex, along with daughter Emily. And a surprise visit brought the full complement of four generations to the table with a granddaughter (one of seven grandchildren total) and two of the nine great-grandchildren.
I asked Tom to tell me about something that’s been fun for him in the years since he retired from his NAHS years. It did not surprise me that it still involved innovating in the world of theatre.
He had this to say: “One thing that I have really enjoyed has been at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, serving as an Audio Describer to those who have very little eyesight or none at all. It has allowed me to take part in the storytelling experience in a fresh new way. The visually impaired can attend a play or musical and get most of the story from songs or dialogue. But there’s more that can only be seen on stage. Using special headphones, the rest of the story gets explained to them, by volunteers like myself, serving as Audio Describers. It’s been very rewarding.”
From the showboat Majestic to helping fill in the “mind’s eye” in the twenty-first century, Tom Weatherston has been painting these pictures and stories for all of us, for a very long time. May we never lose those visions.
The Weatherston family captures Tom’s fabulous tale of a bygone era, aboard one of the last real showboats in America: the Majestic: watch now.
——————————————-
Melissa Combs, FCHS Class of 1975
Melissa came to Floyd Central in 1971 from Our Lady of Perpetual Help after the eighth grade. She had anticipated going to Providence, but there was no easy school bus solution to get her there. It turned out to be a lightning-bolt stroke of good fortune. She’ll tell you, without a doubt, that her four years at FC absolutely changed her life. Receiving a scholarship to Purdue, she was cast as the lead in three main stage musicals and two graduate student plays. No first-year student had ever done that in the history of the theatre department there. She credits the experiences she had at Floyd Central to go to college and stick out as uncommonly “stage-ready”, for a student fresh out of high school.
Still, she decided that she would not learn acting in college. Like many who seek a career in singing or acting, the road took her on a dizzying odyssey. She was eager to see what her chances might be in New York or Los Angeles. But they both require a kind of life that just never did appeal to her. Time and time again, she came back to Kentuckiana. She was instrumental in the first renovation of New Albany’s Grand Theater when it became the Grand American Music Hall. Upon its re-opening, she performed there, week after week as the opening act.
From an early age, Melissa loved all kinds of musical performers she saw on television. One idol, in particular, was country singer Marty Robbins. It felt like karma when she learned that he was appearing at Clarksville’s Derby Dinner Theatre. Quite out of the ordinary practice for a headliner, she lucked into meeting him in person, backstage. His routine advice to “send me a demo” turned out to need many more steps along the way, before he really gave her a proper listen. Once he did, he invited her to come to Nashville. For nearly five years after that, Melissa’s world revolved a great deal around his mentoring, his teaching and coaching. In 1982, Robbins’ sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack left many of her unfilled “what ifs” crushingly uprooted. She was only 25. Sometimes, it still feels like yesterday.
As numbing as that was, Melissa’s commitment to a life performing meant one thing: find work, go where the work is, do commercials and “the Holiday Inn circuit”, sing lead for bands that are here today and gone tomorrow, appear in bars and cabarets. Demand for her appearances rose. She’s been on the Nashville Network, together with The Kentucky Opera, the Louisville and Bowling Green Orchestras, and traveled with the Kentucky Youth Orchestra as principal vocalist. Sometimes, the callings are far from lucrative. One opportunity that she’s come to love is the WHAS Crusade for Children telethon. She first sang for the Crusade with no expectation of ever coming back. This year marks her twenty-ninth. She’s become a perennial crowd-pleaser, performing the theme song “One Dream, One Heart”.
She was inducted into the FC Alumni Hall of Fame in 2016 and last year, she became the first Hall of Fame inductee to serve on the Floyd Central Alumni Board.
In her personal life, she remains close to her brothers, Bret and Mark. As the lockdown restrictions have begun to ease, there are opportunities again. Derby Dinner remains a good friend, decades since her first experiences on stage there. She was one of just a few performers who appeared there, in solo concert, last year. Half-capacity restrictions meant that many loyal fans were unable to see her. Those who were there will swear they got twice the entertainment. Just last week, she began a six-week run of “Dearly Beloved”, a fast-paced wedding comedy, small-town Texas-style. Does this show bring her lifetime tally of plays and musicals up to a hundred? She’s not sure. Maybe it’s close to that!
A personal note: I want our readers to know about Melissa’s great contribution, performing at the Floyd Central memorial tribute, held just two months ago. It was organized to honor former faculty and staff who left us during this long, hard year of challenges. After the service, dozens of guests commented on her singing, and so I asked Melissa: “Tell me what it means to you, to perform sacred songs.”
She replied “God gave me a talent in my voice that seems to reach people. Just like many entertainers, when I’m on stage, I love the focus to be on me. But at church, I prefer to be in the balcony, out of sight for those who have come to worship. I want the focus to be on the Cross, not me. The songs I sing there fill my heart with joy and a feeling of gratitude. I feel truly blessed if I am an instrument, through songs, to help someone feel the presence and love of God.”
Read the entire May 2021 Legacy Ledger (Issue 9).