McDowell Easter Pageant This Friday Brings Viewers Face To Face With The Events Of Holy Week

McDowell, Va – This coming Friday evening Highland County residents have a special opportunity to experience the spirit of the Easter season at the McDowell Easter Pageant. The Reverend Dave Boger and his wife Vicki have organized this dramatic performance for several years. Vicki talks about this year’s event.

“We are going to be having an Easter pageant that tells about the week leading up to the resurrection of our Lord,” she says. “It is put on by the McDowell United Methodist Charge including the churches of McDowell, McKendree, Totten Chapel and Doe Hill. But we also have some other folks from in the community; I don’t want to leave anyone out, so we do get some folks from other churches there as well.”

Mrs. Boger goes on to describe how the pageant began.

“Well we started about 9 years ago, believe it or not in the basement of the Methodist parsonage, and it was just tiny little sections curtained off and we took people around to each section,” she says. “The enthusiasm for sharing the word grew and we wanted to do something more and as the ideas began to flow we came to the Ruritan building and each year we added to it since then. We have special effects, we have people that have done paintings, and so just each year we’ve tried to make it better.”

She continues with a brief description of the performance.

“This is an idea of what the story covers,” she says. “Tonight you will be guided through six scenes depicting the events leading up to the Easter story; your guide will help you as they lead you to each scene. Try to picture yourself as one of the spectators in the crowd of Jerusalem on that day.”

The Reverend Dave Boger talks about some of the McDowell and Doe Hill families who have played parts in the pageant for years.

“We have a lot of different people participating in this in our four churches,” he says. “You all know the O’baugh family and they play a very strong role in this. GW is going to be depicted as Jesus, Brent is going to be Pilate the judge, all of them are learning part of it. We had about 70 people in the drama last year, and we anticipate even more than that this year, about 80.”

The way the pageant is set up in different rooms gives the guests the feeling that they are in the middle of all these remarkable events.

“When somebody comes to this, it’s like they’re walking into the City of Jerusalem, and they’re walking through the scenes themselves, they’re not just sitting somewhere watching, they are a part of what’s going on,” he says. “When they first come in they walk into the market scene just outside of the temple in Jerusalem. And there are money changers, people selling their stuff just like they would back in that day; and then as the guides lead them from to each scene they just kinda walk into the room where that scene is taking place.”

The public can see the performance on Friday, April 6, anytime between 6:30 and 9 pm at the Stonewall Ruritan building in McDowell. Refreshments will be provided and there is no charge for attending the pageant.