The Shelburne Falls Area Business Association (SFABA) nominated Bernie Butler of Buckland to be the recipient of its fifth Marvin Shippee Community Service Award for his lifetime commitment to the community movies in Shelburne Falls. The award is presented annually to a member of the West County community who has demonstrated outstanding service to their community in the tradition of Marvin Shippee, who founded the SFABA in the early 1960s and led the organization for over twenty years.

Butler, now 76, is a retired machinist who spent 48 years working for the Mayhew Tool Company, much of it in the quonset hut beside the Glacial Potholes in Shelburne Falls. In addition, Mr. Butler worked weekends and evenings as a movie projectionist for Carl Nilman, starting in 1940, in Nilman’s West County movie theaters. Nilman ran a commercial movie theater in Memorial Hall in Shelburne Falls until 1960, and a drive-in on Route 2 which closed in 1986. When the commercial movie theaters closed, Butler saved the old carbon-arc 35mm projectors, which date back to 1927, and kept them in working repair in his basement.

In 1995, Pothole Pictures was organized as a non-profit movie series as part of a larger effort to restore Memorial Hall Theater, which had sat virtually unused for over thirty years. Mr. Butler was the lynch pin of that effort to revive the community movie theater. He came out of retirement to serve once again as projectionist for the theater, and brought his antique projectors back to the hall.

For the past seven years Mr. Butler has put in countless hours maintaining and improving the old projectors and in training younger projectionists to assist him. This past winter, Butler and a second retired machinist, Bill Walker of Lamson & Goodnow Mfg. Company, machined new parts to graft the old Garden Theater sound heads onto the 1927 projectors, giving Pothole Pictures vastly improved stereo sound.

According to Andrew Baker, the outgoing SFABA Director and a co-founder of Pothole Pictures, "Bernie Butler represents the Yankee machinist tradition behine an entire New England that is largely gone now. Community movie theaters have disappeared in most other towns also, but Bernie has helped keep one alive in Shelburne Falls over many decades."

Baker added, "Presenting the Marvin Shippee Award to Bernie Butler allows the SFABA to recognize the broad spectrum of skills that go into community service. Many of the previous award recipients have been organizers — people who raise money, start projects and get people together. Bernie is that indispensible "man behind the curtain" with the Yankee know-how, who can fix just about anything and make it work. Pothole Pictures would not have happened without him."

Mr. Butler’s wife Eleanor and his daughter Mary were on hand at the award ceremony, which was held at the SFABA annual meeting on April 26th at the Warfield House Restaurant.. Mary Butler has carried her father’s machinist skills to another level as an aeronautics engineer for the NASA space shuttle in Cape Canaveral, Florida. In addition to maintaining movie projectors, Bernie Butler’s interests include repairing antique radios and playing the harmonica in the July 4th parade.

Those interested in seeing the results of Mr. Butler’s technical skill can attend Pothole Pictures spring movie season. The 1972 film Cabaret will be playing at Memorial Hall on May 10th and 11th at 7:30 PM, preceded "music at the movies" at 7:00 PM (Fri- Street Arabs-country rock, Sat-Moving Violations- contradance band). Sunset Boulevard will be playing on May 17th and 18th.

Special thanks to the Shelburne Falls Area Business Association for providing this article. www.shelburnefalls.com/

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