News from December 8, 2005 issue

Friday
--- 7 p.m., Community Choir presents "A Smoky Mountain Christmas" at Fohs Hall featuring drama and holiday musical selections.

SATURDAY
--- 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Lions Club Lunch with Santa, Marion Baptist Church Family Life Center, hot dogs and cookies plus a special treat for children.
--- 1-4 p.m., Open House at Marion Commons (formerly English Manor), including tours of Marion City Hall and the Marion Police Department.
n Photos with Santa, 2 p.m., until dark at the gazebo. Sponsored by Beta Sigma Phi Sorority.
--- 5 p.m., Christmas caroling downtown. To participate call 704-0607 or 965-5015.
--- 5 p.m., Judging of home decorating contest. To make nominations or enter, call 965-5105.
--- 5 p.m., Official lighting of courthouse decorations.
--- 5:30-7 p.m., Enjoy the Christmas story through a German Putz, a miniature Christmas display featuring scenes of the nativity, showing every 15 minutes in the basement of Marion United Methodist Church.
--- 7 p.m., Drawing of topaz gem benefiting Clement Mineral Museum at gazebo.
--- 7 p.m., Announcement of holiday decorating contest winners.
--- 7 p.m. Christmas Parade.

Sunday
--- 4 p.m. Community Choir presents "A Smoky Mountain Christmas" at Fohs Hall featuring drama and holiday musical selections.

NO PARKING ON MAIN STREET from 4-8 p.m., Saturday due to safety precautions during parade and other activities downtown. Handicap parking will be available on West Carlisle between Farmers Bank and the courthouse.

Grand Marshal at age 86
Imogene Stout James' business didn't have a Main Street storefront or a counter packed with people waiting to satisfy their sweet tooth. But that didn't diminish her notoriety.

Before there was a Chamber of Commerce or brochures promoting local businesses, word of mouth alone promoted Imogene's Catering. All during the summer months and around the holidays, Imogene Stout James had the flour sacks out in her kitchen and the table covered with dishes and supplies she would use in her catering business. it was her cakes that brides and grooms first tasted at their wedding receptions. It was her hors d' oeuvres that couples took off of silver trays at elegant parties in Marion.

It is her 86 years as an active citizen and businesswoman in Crittenden County that led the Chamber of Commerce to select her as the grand marshal of this year's Christmas parade. Married to Earl James since 1985 and to the late Howard Stout from 1939-1978, James has two sons, Keith and Allen, both of whom live in Marion.
James' catering business which began in the late 1960s was ideal for that of a wife and mother of two whose family expected her home each afternoon. Two days at Potter & Brumfield gave her family a taste of what their lives would be like if she worked outside the home.

"My first morning Howard had gone to work and I went in early and Keith had to cook breakfast for Allen, and he ruined 13 pieces of bread," she remembers. "That afternoon they were all sitting on the couch when I came in. They said, 'We've had a meeting of the board of directors and we decided you can't go to work any more, we can't do without you.'"

She went the next day, her second and last day.

Born in the Mexico community, James was one of seven children who attended school through the eighth grade in the two-room school at Mexico. She attended Marion High School where she was a member of the first Beta Club and graduated in 1938.

She married her high school sweetheart, Howard Stout, in 1939. She still wears the watch he gave her as a graduation present.

"I remember we walked up town and he carried my books to City Drug," she said, recalling one of their first dates. "I was bashful. I will never forget going to a play with him and I had on a green suit with a belt in the back that I'd gotten for $8 at Mrs. Terry's on Main Street. I wanted to sit in the back and he took me clear down to the front row."
With the exception of a few years in Texas and Indiana while Howard Stout served in World War II, James has lived her lifetime as a Crittenden County resident. Today she is a member of Marion United Methodist Church, has one of the longest-standing memberships in the Ellis Ordway Post 111 Auxiliary and has coffee every Saturday morning in Marion with a group of women who call themselves the Steel Magnolias.
One of her most vivid catering memories was an event she didn't know she was having.

Her son Keith's third grade teacher, Mary Louise Walker, called one spring morning and asked whether she was aware that the class was having an Easter egg hunt at her home that very afternoon.

"Keith had invited the whole class ­ 32 kids ­ and back then you had to dye all the eggs," James remembers. "I got busy and when they got here I had punch out on the table."

Still today there is a treat for friends whose visits are planned and those who stop by unannounced.

She loves company and meets familiar and unfamiliar faces just the same ­ with a big smile on her face.

Her memories of Marion and its people are fond.

"I love Marion," she said. "I have so many friends who are so good to me," she said, noting her surprise at being selected the parade grand marshal. "I thought it was a joke at first, but I guess I should thank (the Chamber) and thank the good Lord for letting me stay around for 86 years."