By HARRIET PROTHRO PENROD
Artists, politicians, businessmen, philanthropists, educators, doctors, pastors . . . just a few of the many interesting people I have had the pleasure to interview so far in this weekly feature. Sitting over lunch with so many of the fascinating people who make our community a better place, I have taken pages and pages of notes recalling stories they have so graciously shared with me.
To retell all of those stories would require more time and space than is allowed in each of the weekly installments. But they’re too interesting to leave scribbled on the pages and filed away in a drawer. So, from time to time, I’m going to add a little to some of my “lunches.”
A little “dessert,” perhaps.
Paul Harvey called it “the rest of the story.” I like to think of it as “more of the story.”
Many were born here and never left. Others were raised in Shreveport-Bossier, moved away for a time and then returned. There are those, too, who had no previous ties to the area but decided to make this community their home. Some had ties that pulled them here.
Jenifer Hill fits in more than one of those categories.
Born in Missouri, Hill moved with her family to Shreveport when she was eight years old and says she was “raised here.” Once she got here, she never left.
But the executive director of The Strand Theatre had some pretty strong ties to this area.
“My grandparents were here,” Hill told me during our lunch at Fairfield Market & Café.
When she told me her grandmother’s name was Lela Cain, it was like going back in time. I knew immediately that her grandmother had to be the proprietor of Cain’s Antiques, the iconic Bossier business that was a favorite of my mother’s. I could picture going into the beautiful building 50 years ago and, suddenly, it was like sitting down with an old friend.
Friends are very important to Hill.
“It was always the three ‘H’s,’ – Hill, Holman, and Horne,” she recalls of her days at St. Vincent’s Academy. “For three years, we sat alphabetically. Then, the fourth year, we got to pick where we sat — and we chose to stay side-by-side.”
The “Ninjas” – Jenifer Hill, Kris Holman, and Elizabeth Horne – are all still in Shreveport and remain very close.
Once Hill got to Shreveport, she never left. After graduating from St. Vincent’s, she attended Centenary College and LSUS,
“I stayed here, got married at 18, and raised my babies here,” said Hill, who was a stay-at-home mom until her youngest was three years old. That’s when she ventured out into the working world, first working part-time in test proctoring.
Hill became friends with her oldest son’s violin teacher, who told her they were looking for someone at “the Symphony.”
In her seven-plus years with the Shreveport Symphony, Hill served as a marketing/development associate and director of operations and education. Prior to joining The Strand, she also worked with the Shreveport Opera as director of development and patron services.
These days, Hill is busy putting together the lineup for the next season of Strand shows as well as awaiting the return of her youngest son, who will soon be moving back to make Shreveport his home as well.
“He got his JD, decided he didn’t want to be a lawyer, went back and got his master’s in education and now he’s a teacher,” she said. (That leaves one son in San Antonio and the other in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.)
A little bit of trivia: when Hill became executive director of The Strand, guess who the first person she called was?
“When I got the job and they put the keys in my hand, I called by best friend Hallie in Baton Rouge,” she recalled. “I said, ‘You’re not going to believe what I’ve got in my hands – an entire set of keys to The Strand.’”
That’s the same Hallie (Dozier) who used to go with Hill to The Strand when the two young girls would be dropped off as young girls to watch the classic movies at the historic landmark theatre. Those same ones who would get thrown out of the movies for tossing popcorn into people’s hair.
Just a little more of the story.
Contact Harriet at sbjharriet@gmail.com