The coveted Mummy Award began in 1953 as a special award to a worker who has given many years of service backstage. A life-sized mummy case was built in 1946 for the Man Who Came to Dinner. In 1953 the mummy turned up again when scenery and properties were being moved to a warehouse on Liberty Ave. This is before the theatre was purchased. Deemed of no further use it was taken to the dump. At the end of the day as the last 5 volunteers were locking up the warehouse there was the mummy lid leaning against the telephone pole in the alley. Jane Hazledine tossed it into the truck and placed it on the mantle when they gathered that night at the home of George Mayrose. Throughout the winter the mummy lid showed up at each of their homes, all having ceremoniously signed it: Bob Wiandt, Hap and Ewing Miller, George Mayrose, and Jane Hazledine. When the Millers moved to England for a year the next spring, convinced that would not be happy without the mummy, Jane presented them with a small copper mummy case she created engraved with those 5 names and filled with X-rated scrolls. A couple of years later Bob Wiandt commissioned his father Walter Wiandt, a master jeweler to create a sterling silver mummy of the same design for Jane. Over the next 35 years Jane Hazledine continued to make the copper mummy cases. Ken Hazledine made them from 1990 to 1994 and daughter Peggy Apgar took over the making of the mummy in 2000. A bedraggled piece of the original mummy lid hangs in the lobby of the theatre along with a list of the Mummy Award winners.
Community Theatre of Terre Haute
