Brian Luedtke’s
Brian Luedtke in Arcadia, Nebraska
A t o m i c P a t h To T h e S o u t h
By Erick Daniel Richman
rian Luedtke’s historic home base here in B Columbus is a settlement from which he explores and expands his connections with the From Scene in ‘Steam It’
city around him: Volunteering in the mornings, jogging in the late afternoons, performing on stage in the evening. As a child on a Nebraska farm in 1974, he was struck by determination: “One day, I’m going to be a Southerner.” Today, he has a prolific role in the city of Columbus, allocating his time to the theater scene, committee appointments - serving with many organizations including the Historic Columbus Foundation, the Historic Linwood Foundation, the American Legion, Uptown Columbus, and the Historic District Preservation Society - and to hands-on work. “I get out an oar and I help row the boat,” he says, “or hitch up the wagon and help pull. That’s what I do.” At the Springer Opera House, for example, he is a board member, actor, easily one of the most enthusiastic and ardent supporters (and performers) of No Shame Theatre, and also the Jim Pharr & Brian On Stage In 2019 At No Shame
window revitalization specialist, entrusted with the difficult and painstaking task of preserving the National Historic Landmark’s original windows. Brian’s journey – from Nebraska farmer to nuclear artillery officer to Columbus community LocaL
pillar – echoes and reinforces his beloved Springer Academy’s motto: “Life skills through stage skills,” he nods emphatically. “As an officer, you’re always in front of people, always teaching, always writing.” RESTORATION & PRESERVATION In the 1990s, when Brian purchased his historic home, he set out to learn how to repair and rehabilitate it himself. Known as the Lion House for the pair of stone-faced big cats out front, its complex history was explored by writer Tom Ingram in a January 2018 issue of The LocaL. Today, Brian has carefully restored the home, adorning it with all manner of retrieved and reclaimed artifacts: eighty-year-old blenders that still function, hand-made advertising signs for long-shuttered diners, one-off folk-art pieces, and the family’s furniture that was delivered to Nebraska on covered wagons and more recently brought to Georgia by automobile. In a free moment, he might be found tinkering with ‘built-to-last’ tools from “before planned obsolescence” was standard: as determined to hear an old weed-wacker spin up once more as
says, and “one of only three that went to college.” He considered staying to tend the farm, but he says he knew what he really wanted to do: “become a southerner.” ACTING & ARTILLERY As a high school junior, he was inspired by Elizabeth Hendricks, a fellow Nebraskan who returned from college to teach her first year of English literature. “I’m sitting in class and I’m looking at her,” he says, “I’m mesmerized by how cute she is, but she also taught southern authors and southern culture, which I’d never heard before.” Inspired by his teacher and their classes on the writings of Mark Twain and William Faulkner, he determined then that he wanted to relocate to the idyllic, dynamic southern locales he envisioned.
The Lion House
to restore a rotting, mottled window to beauty and clarity. NEBRASKAN FARMHAND Brian’s penchant for working with his hands was formed – alongside his childhood memories - in the harsh farming conditions of Nebraska; the child of a Korean War veteran descended from immigrants following the wave created by the Homesteading Act of 1862, he recalls his young days spent raising crops, defeathering chickens, and straining milk. “We subsistence gardened,” he says, “It was land Mom and Dad bought for $50 an acre back when I was a year old.” Patting dry freshly-birthed piglets, a young Brian didn’t know the winding journey that would eventually allow him to settle such an expansive space for himself in Columbus, Georgia. “I was in a class of 22 in my high school,” he 8
JUNE-JULY 2022
