Students in Lexington, Neb. revive local movie theater

The Majestic Theatre in Lexington, NE

If you grow up or live in a small town, you know how important it is to have a local movie theater.  Your theater is a place for people in the community to get together and have fun.  It’s a place for young people to go to on a date.  It’s the place where you make memories of those fun summer movies.

(Nope, I don’t have fond memories of the 13 times I saw Star Wars in the summer of 1977.  Nope, not me….)

I love the fact that here in Kearney we have The World Theatre, a revival/art house theater run by a community non-profit, that plays a great combination of vintage movies and films that would never play here otherwise.

These are things that people who live in urban areas can take for granted.

So I was really excited to read about a group of students in Lexington, Nebraska who worked over a several year period to purchase, renovate and restart their closed local movie theater, The Majestic. The article in the Kearney Hub newspaper today tells about a group of kids who started work in middle school trying to revive their local theater.  With the help of fund raisers, grants, construction classes, and big helping of community engagement, the venue is now open three nights a week showing first run movies like Pitch Perfect 2 and Tomorrowland.

The theater is being run as a non-profit with volunteers.

What a great gift to the town of Lexington, and what a great lesson to the young people who decided they wanted to make it happen!