`HEE HAW' IN APPLE CREEK

Rose Welker sings "Ahab the Arab" during Sunday night's performance at the Apple Creek parish hall.

APPLE CREEK -- After St. Joseph's Elementary School burned down in December 1979, some members of the church choir decided to put on a show to help raise money for a new school. But Mickey Rooney was nowhere in sight.

Ray Sauer was.

For that first talent show, Sauer put together a 20-minute skit based on the TV program "Hee Haw." What has evolved over the past 15 years is an event that involves many of the parish's 200 families and that attracts near-capacity audiences from Perry and Cape Girardeau counties and from Illinois.

The show was performed last weekend in the parish hall and will go on again at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Sauer and his wife, Evelyn, have directed "Hee Haw Apple Creek Style" since its inception. He writes the skits, plays some characters and emcees. "She sees how everything should fit in," he says.

Now more "Hee Haw" than talent show, the two-hour performance is as corny as its now-defunct prototype, with a dash of barnyard humor that might not have gotten by the TV censors. Close to 400 people jam the hall each night.

There's a waiting list to get into the production, too. In this close-knit farming community, part of the attraction is seeing friends and neighbors up there being foolish for the common good.

Familiar characters make appearances during the evening, among them Apple Creek's Minnie (Shirley Buchheit), Elrod (Richard Baer) and Junior (Donald Welker).

Baer began playing Elrod 13 years ago at age 22. The shows have gotten better through the years, he said. "We used to practice three months ahead." Six weeks of rehearsals now are required.

A Procter & Gamble employee and farmer, Baer went to grade school at Apple Creek. "It's the one time you can see people and all they do is laugh," he says.

"I think laughter is what we need," Sauer chimes in.

Delighted screams greet Larry Kohlfeld and Baer in overstuffed overalls singing "I'm Too Sexy." Petite Rose Welker brings down the house with "Ahab the Arab."

Father John Bolderson, the parish priest, also makes some appearances, carrying on the tradition of his predecessors.

Talented singers, backed up by the top-flight Little Rock Band, perform between the skits. "That's the secret of it," Sauer says. "While they're singing we can get ready for the next skit."

Helen Winschel ("Hangin' In"), Sue Baer ("No One on Earth") and Susan Stelling and Sharon Newell ("Love Can Build a Bridge") are particularly good.

A group of children from the parish also perform in "Kids Under Construction" and "Angels Among Us."

A flag is lowered at the end and the audience sings along with "America."

By now, the show has helped pay off the debt incurred to build the new school. But now the school depends on the fund-raiser to pay its rising operational costs, which include a kindergarten started a few years ago.

Sauer, who had several surgeries during the past year, wanted to give his demanding director's job to someone else this year but nobody took it.

So he made a bargain with God, he said.

"I told Him if he lets me come through the surgeries, I'd do it a few more years."