Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series on the Levesques. Part 1 focuses on George. Part 2 will delve into Sidney’s time in Abilene.
What will George Levesque miss the most about Abilene? Take your pick.
“Everything,” George said. “I’ve lived here my whole life, tons of roots.”
For nine years George has been the executive director of Abilene’s historic 1930 Paramount Theatre. On June 10, he will assume the same role for the Tampa Theatre in Florida.
His wife, Sidney, who is marketing director at the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council, will stay until the conclusion of the Children’s Art and Literacy Festival. Following that, she and their only child will join George in Tampa.
I met George just a couple years before he and Sidney married in 2003. At the time, he was a sports reporter at TV station KTXS in Abilene, and the paper would borrow him for Friday night football livestreams. A graduate of McMurry University, he’d been raised in Colorado City.
I’m not made for live TV. I’d rush into the newsroom after my game and see George over in the sports corner. The two times I got hoodwinked into a live shot, where deer-in-the-headlights-style I’d sputter something about the game I’d covered, were enough for me.
Later, George went on to be news director and anchor. In 2017, he took over from Betty Hukill at the Paramount.
The show starts at the street
If anything was going to lure the Levesques away, it would be the Tampa Theatre. The 100 year-old movie palace, like the Paramount, is a monument to the age when studios owned the venues showing their features.
If the Paramount’s Pueblo Azteca design knocks you out, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The proscenium surrounding the Tampa’s screen is covered with intricate Greco-Roman gold detailing offset by statues and a balcony over the stage.
“The idea was to have this sensory overload,” George said. “John Bell, the president at the Tampa theater, says the show starts at the street under the marquee.”
The “atmospheric theater,” which George called the best example of that 1920s design, is in the midst of a massive renovation as its centennial approaches.
“John Eberson was the inventor of the atmospheric theater,” George said “There’s 100 left in the United States, 140 in the world. He built most of them.”
The Paramount, which was built by Abilene architect David Castle, is an emulation of Eberson’s design. Castle also built the Grace Museum, the Wooten Hotel adjoining the Paramount and the former Abilene High/Lincoln Middle School which reopened in May as Abilene Heritage Square.
It was 18 months ago when a friend called George to tell him he’d found the prettiest theater in America. Intrigued, the family visited that March, enjoyed the tour and didn’t think much more of it when they returned.
But when Bell announced his retirement at the end of 2025, he left George’s name with a consultant.
“They said, ‘Would you be interested in applying?’” George recalled. “And lo and behold, Sidney and I went, ‘Well, that sounds fun.’”
‘Is this a castle?’
When I worked downtown, each December I’d notice school buses line up outside the Paramount. Kids would pile out wearing pajamas and toting their favorite plushies, ready to watch the Tom Hanks holiday movie, “The Polar Express.”
If you’re a grownup and not really a fan of the film, it’s okay.
“It’s not for us,” George said. “It’s for 6-year-olds. You’ll see 600-700 elementary school kids, they’ve never been inside. And invariably, you hear the words, ‘Is this a castle?’”
Well, no, but it was built by a Castle. George laughs.
“They sit, they watch the film, and if you sneak in the back and you listen, they sing along even though no one prompts them to do it,” he said. “It’s a really, special moment every year.”
And then there was the pandemic. With everything shut down, the theater still had to stay afloat.
“So we sold popcorn out the front door and engaged with people, but we also had four vaccine clinics for adults and kids in here,” George said. “We showed movies and gave free popcorn and Cokes if they came and got their vaccines.”
The theater even streamed live question and answer sessions with local doctors.
“Did it make a huge material difference to the COVID pandemic? No, but we did something, we were in a theater, and it felt great,” he said.
That’s why his time at the Paramount felt like a continuation of his time working in news. Both shared the same vibe of public service.
“There is something amazing about being a caretaker for a 100-year-old building that means so much to the city that it’s in,” George said and then laughed. “You know, not only is it an economic driver, that’s where people made out in the balcony and met their wives.”
I laughed too. We’d both heard that story for years.
“God, I’m going to miss Abilene,” George said.
George’s last day is June 7. At 5 p.m. June 2, there will be a send-off for the Levesques at Seven and One Books.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Paramount was ‘public service’ for George Levesque
Reporting by Ronald W. Erdrich, Abilene Reporter-News / Abilene Reporter-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
