Magic-Lantern Show WoW's 700 Children

Third through sixth graders from four schools in Clayton and Fayette counties enjoyed the American Magic-Lantern Show, thanks to a grant from R.J. McElroy Trust, of Waterloo.

The seven hundred children from local schools that attended the Magic-Lantern Show at the Elkader Opera House on February 12, were in awe as most of them had not been to the building before.
"Wow," and "Awesome," being the most popular phrases that described their wonderment.

Due to the snow on the day of the show, Clayton Ridge school of Guttenberg was closed and those kids missed out.

The shows that were planned for 10 a.m., and 12 p.m., were changed to 1 p.m., and 2 p.m., to accommodate the schools that were re-scheduled to start two hours later that day. This meant that unfortunately what were intended to be 75 minute performances, turned out to be 30 minute performances.

Seemingly this was enough time for the attention span of third through sixth graders because they were all exceedingly well behaved. Terry Borton the operator of the Magic Lantern was a great showman and completely captivated them.

The schools that did attend were Central Community, Elkader, Valley Community, Elgin, Edco, Colsburg, and Starmont, Strawberry Point. Borton was assisted by local student Sophie Landis.

Borton had the children stomping their feet and singing old-time songs. He took them back in time to the era of the magic-lantern show. He used old advertising pictures and began to tell the story of American history. He went through the arrival of the first Europeans, adhering the still unchanged history books, he told how Christopher Columbus was the first to arrive, he covered the Native Americans, the origin of Thanksgiving. He explained how the Pequot Indians (Aboriginals) were killed within 50 years.

He kept the interest of the children through a series of slides and broke that up with songs such as, "My country tis a place," and "America the beautiful." The children seemed to love the audience participation part of the production; there was much laughter and squeaks.