![]() N north- eastern Lowndes County there is an old road now named Wolfe Road. The one in Mobi le re - mained open through a $6 million restoration - though it was saved because the University of Alabama bought it the night before demolition was scheduled. New Orleans’ Saenger underwent a $53 million renovation after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, with a public-private partnership and National Rehabilitation Tax C redit s. Other s are in T ex- arkana, Texas Pensacola, Florida, and Pine Bluff, Ar- kansas. Three of them are withi n a two-hour drive of Biloxi, in New Orleans, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alaba ma. The theat er - believ ed to have been Biloxi’s first air-conditioned building - is among seven lavish movie houses built and run around the South by broth- ers Abe and Julian Saenger. ![]() Rafe O’Neal, who orga- nized previous campaigns to raise money for repairs, told the newspaper he’s worki ng o n th e new propos - al. At least one propos al is being readied for the July 15 deadline. “But one thing I do know is that we cannot continue to let this theater deteriorate,” he said. Gilich said he didn’t know if anyone would bid. Council members said the bond money was needed for infrastructure, suggesting that if private money and grants couldn’t be found, perhaps the the- ater shouldn’t be saved. After the Bilox i Coun cil refused in June to designate $2 million of a recent bond issue to prevent more dam- age to the building, Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gillich has asked for proposals to ren- ovate, operate and save the theater. Millions of dollars have been spent to renovate the Biloxi Saenger Theater, which opened in 1929 as a movie palace with silk dam- ask walls and red leather seats, and millions more will be needed to repair and modernize it, The Sun Her- ald reported. S oīILOXI - Three Saenger Theaters within driving distance have been renovated, but the one in south Mississippi is dark, with a leaky roof and unsafe areas. Music soldiers would play around the campfire at night - with banjos, spoons or bones, harmonicas and fiddles - was left out of the picture. He started participating in battle re-enactments in the early 1990s and noticed that no one was playing music off the battlefield, beyond the fife, drum and bugle. Ar inder, 73, is a Civ il War re -e nactor, teacher and self-made historian, who plays popular campfire songs of the time on a period banjo he bought on Ebay for about $500. Arinder seemed implanted in a spot hundreds of years ahead of him. It was Friday, and Arinder strummed his banjo outside a preserved log cabin at Amory Regional Museum, surround- ed by stop signs, moving cars and modern-day houses. Ar inder lo oked li ke a sold ier st raigh t from a Civil War tinty pe, but it wasn’t the 1860s. A vest f rom a Union uni form l aid on the porch nea rby. He wore a but- toned-up wool Confederate jacket, faded grey with red detailing at the collar and sleeves, designed for a lanky artillery soldier, with tall leather riding boots and a brown hat embellished with a gold ‘C’ on the side. N a hot summer’s day, William Pat Ar inder sa t outside a log cabi n built in 1838, frailing “Oh! Susan- na” on an 1850 s banjo.
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