By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com
At one time, J.P. Dickey thought he was going to be an accountant.
Fate had other plans. A friend’s encouragement to audition for a play led Dickey to a career in theater.
Dickey’s career in teaching is now award-winning: The theater instructor at Crowder College is a recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Receiving the award required nomination and approval from the faculty.
“This is a state recognition, and recognition from my peers,” Dickey said. “For them to recognize me with this, I’m very humbled by what they did.”
Dickey, 49, has a 21-year-old son, and his father still lives in the area. A graduate of McDonald County High School, he began his college career about 30 years ago at Crowder. It was then that he had dreams of crunching numbers and filing taxes as an accountant.
After taking an accounting class, he found out the field was not for him. Soon afterwards a carpooling friend wanted to audition for a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“She brought me along,” Dickey said. “She wanted me to audition with her. I got cast, and she didn’t.”
His first role, Algernon, was the kindling that helped start a fire. The experience was so enjoyable that he changed direction.
He graduated from Crowder and Missouri Southern State University with a degree in education. Later, he earned a masters degree from Missouri State University in theater.
Dickey has found his home in theater and speech education. After stints in Florida and other places, he returned to the area and worked for KODE-TV as a director, and was the first director of the station’s “Good Morning Four States” program.
Soon afterward, he taught speech and theater at Carthage High School before accepting a position at Crowder in 2000. He is now the chairman of the fine arts division at Crowder, and teaches speech and theater classes.
Teaching theater is compelling, he said, because it is challenging.
“Typically in a class there is a student-teacher relationship,” Dickey said. “But at the same time, all those people involved with productions are also like colleagues. It’s a challenge to maintain that student-teacher relationship, yet work with them at the same time.”
It’s an interesting and fun challenge, Dickey said, that teaches real-world, real-work experience like no other field.
“We count on each other,” Dickey said. “If they miss an assignment, then it just affects their grade. But if they don’t do work on a production, they are jeopardizing everything.”
He is also proud to be a teacher of the arts, which he said is crucial for a well-rounded education. An exposure to fine arts can round out the stodgiest engineer or picky accountant, he said.
His sister, who is a nurse, does a lot of hiring, Dickey said. If given the choice between someone who went to nursing school and someone who went to a liberal arts college, then all other things being equal, she’ll choose the college student, he said.
“It’s a more rounded education,” Dickey said. “Arts are in our lives and a part of everything. They define who we are, and celebrate who we are.”
Dickey’s career has given him access to many wonderful stories. Though many have impacted him, such as Paul Zindel’s “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” it’s a Neil Simon story that gets him every time. If he got the chance to direct a single play every year, it would be “Barefoot in the Park.”
“I know it’s an old standard,” Dickey said. “I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it. But the movie always pops up on TV. I still watch it, and I still laugh.”
For the future, Dickey said he wants to continue growing in his role. He said his teaching philosophy is based on people finding second chances — just like he did. In winning the award, he named teachers that influenced him, including James Rhoades, Jack Divine, Glenna Wallace, Russell Walker and Ed Oathout.
“What guided me through Crowder, as a lost soul, was that someone told me I could do something,” Dickey said. “I like to give second chances. People can do things if we let them.”
