During my conversation with Amanda Hoffman about the upcoming play in June, she shared some fascinating details. The play, titled The Big Sandy and written by Mike Hesford, will be performed twice during homecoming. Currently, we are in search of actors, particularly those with an adult-based cast to bring a diverse range of perspectives. The play is based on a significant event that took place in 1970 on a local farm near Big Sandy, which was actually outside of Box Elder. This unique opportunity allows us to reenact the historical event, known as the 'Cornfield Bomber' incident.
I googled Wikipedia for Cornfield Bomber, and I found this information. "The "Cornfield Bomber" is the nickname given to a Convair F-106 Delta Dart of the United States Air Force's 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which made an unpiloted landing in a farmer's field in Montana in 1970. Suffering only minor damage after the pilot had ejected from the aircraft during a training mission gone awry, the aircraft was recovered, repaired, and returned to service. It is currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio."
Amanda said, "Mike Hesford is a drama teacher down in Boulder, Montana, for Jefferson High School, the high school I attended. A local resident of Big Sandy went down when they performed the play for the first time. Hesford was told we have a theater group in Big Sandy, and he gave us the information. So Diana Keene got an email about the play six or seven years ago. We thought this would be a great time to do it (during homecoming), so we got in touch with him again. He's letting us do it royalty-free. He's rewritten it a couple of times. He's been very good to work with. They have a plane that the shop class in Boulder built for the play, and we're going down to pick that up. I've talked to the pilot of the plane. He and the play's writer will be here for one of our performances.
Amanda says, "We are looking for a minimum of 22 people. We have eight adult parts. The play actually takes place after the plane has landed. It's kind of after the fact that nobody really knows what happened. He's written multiple plays. This is the second one that will be performed outside his classrooms."
