BACK STORY ENCORE
Sid Ellis
Executive Director, Douglass Community Association
A
couple of times Kalamazoo has come very close to losing Sid Ellis, one of its longtime arts advocates and community servants. In the mid-1980s, the Davenport University graduate had his car packed and ready to drive to Texas, where there was a big boom in jobs. “I was literally putting my suitcase in the car and got a phone call,” he recalls. That call was for a job as an operator at AT&T (then Michigan Bell) in Kalamazoo, which he ultimately took. The second time, he left Kalamazoo for Chicago to begin a career as an extra in television commercials. “I was in the car driving there, and I felt that God was telling me not to. And I turned around and came back,” he says. “That's when I started producing more stage theater. And then I got married, and 27 years and two kids later, I’m still here. Every time I tried to leave Kalamazoo, something great happened.”
Brian Powers
(continued on page 37)
38 | ENCORE NOVEMBER 2020
