Impact 1997 Out Of This World

1997: Out of this World- This was our "outer space year". Well this was huge for me. Steve Davidson called and asked me to have lunch with him and Jon Shoulders at O'Charley's Brentwood. I was not sure what they wanted to talk about and I was a little nervous. They asked me to help with Impact on "the board". He asked me to pray about it, I thought I don’t need to I’m in! But I made a deal with God that night, I am not sure how theologically sound that idea is. But I said I would never covet another board position as long as I worked with Impact. I was blown away humbled and still thank God for allowing me to be a part of this deal. This was my first year on the Impact board with fellow rookie Mike Shepherd whom I had taught classes with the year before. We were put in charge of filling the time between classes on stage. This was the first "official" year for Morning Impact. We had 25 minutes to kill between 1st class and second class. They still booked a comedy act everyday to fill some time (eventually they would begin not booking the comedy acts and they gave Morning Impact the full 45 minutes and then expanded us to an hour). It was rough that first year, but we had fun for that 25 minutes everyday. Mike and I did not really know how to prepare so we played some stage games, and that was about it. I remember how messy everything we did was because Mike and I thought the crazier the better. Jon who had become the stage manager would get so mad because people were slipping all over the stage when we were done. We did some videos like a video with a couple of frozen chickens (a Skidmore favorite). The skit in its third year was a Star Wars skit and just awful. Jon Shoulders was kind of our "bread and butter". I mean everyone loved Jon when he was in the skit it was a sure hit. Well, he decided to take a year off from doing the skits for his own sanity. He did do a cameo appearance as Obie Jon Kenobe. His decision that year I had great respect for, I do not want to speak for Jon but he has expressed this to me enough that it made an impact. He did not want Impact to be about him, something those of us on stage can struggle with. To appreciate this you should know this would be like...making a new X-men movie without Wolverine. Jon was the single largest reason I thought the teens enjoyed the skit. We really had not figured out how to do the skits where he was not the main comic emphasis. Jon could make a face and people would laugh. I think the skit struggled that year and it was my fault I just did not know how to use the talent we had properly. There was a young counselor who became Mike Sheperd's brother in law named Wes who was hilarious as Luke Skyrunner. I also remember Brad Shumpert a youth worker out of Arkansas played Pizza the Hut (a rip off of "Spaceballs") and Shanna Curtis was Princess Leah. I remember feeling so inept on day two as the skit was bombing. The teens did not laugh at much. I do not remember much of anything else except one other bright spot. Matt Elliot was hilarious as Garth Vader a role he reprised years later at Impact DEEP. This was also the last year for the Impact slide I believe.
Moment of silence (Impact slide 1993-1997) we hardly knew you.
As far as hardly knowing the slide, well that is not entirely true as many of us got to know the slide. Lincoln Smith was in charge of the behemoth which ran from the top of the parking lot above the soccer field to the field below, one year we even had two. There was this kid whose name I will with hold who was kind of the "slide guy". He would stay from start to finish and cut people constantly in line. Eventually the campers would start chanting "Back of the line" when he would walk up the hill. It became a competition to see who could slide the furthest off the plastic into the mud pit that the slide created. The "back of the line" guy, along with Ben Brown and "Big Jim" Cox, Impact security regulars were awesome at this. Another bad thing about it was that sometimes because of the plastic it would cut sliders who went off the edge. Thank goodness for medical release forms. There is no telling how many wounds it caused, and boy did it make that field stink. I can still remember that smell by the last day. One year (I believe 95) Lee Milam sat this speaker system up and Jon, Matt Elliot, and I sat at the top of the hill commentating the slide events. The Impact slide was also the home of one of the scariest moments in Impact history when Dudley Chancey was knocked hard on the back of his head attempting to film sliders. Eventually Lipscomb stopped the use of the slide as the soccer team got tired of us destroying their field. I cannot blame them we really tore it up. Not a year goes by when some Impact old scholar asks, "where's the slide?" Well the answer to that question is......... it's in Holland, KY where it entertains campers at Taylor Christian Camp (now maybe someone could tell me where the Haunted House from Nashville's old Fair Park went). Maybe one day the slide will come home, and Lipscomb will have a place for it, but till then may it rest in peace.