Roger Smith flew helicopters as a pilot reporter for a Dallas television station.

He built smaller-scaled warehouses by converting abandoned Walmarts for storage. He dabbled in real estate, flipping properties for profit, and worked as a steam railroad engineer in Texas.

But in February of 2009, he fell in love with an old building: the Temple Theater for the Performing Arts in Meridian. 

“I came here, I liked the town and I liked the theater,” Smith said. “So I bought it in February of 2009.”

Owning a theater with a beautiful organ – like the Temple – had been a childhood dream of Smith. He said he hoped the community would rally together to restore the aging building, still one of the largest – if not the largest – performing spaces in the state. 

But, instead, neither the local colleges nor the local governments have stepped in to help save the Meridian landmark as has happened for other Mississippi theaters, most notably the $3.75 million Hattiesburg renovation of its Saenger Theater in 2000. 

“I have to break even every month,” Smith said. “We don’t have a lot of cash reserves to fill in the holes for the negative months.”

Smith said he appealed to the city, which suffers its own financial problems, and started a charitable organization, the Temple Theater for the Performing Arts, Inc.

Neither did much to turn the tide.

“I’m 61 now and when you’re 50, you can run up and down those steps with no problem,” Smith said. “But when you’re 60…”

Government owned

Unlike other local institutions, Smith said he hasn’t received external support. The City of Meridian promotes the Mississippi State University Riley Center in its city banners and diverts a percentage of its food and beverage tax to the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience. When the MSU Riley Center reopened its renovated opera house, it had the help of both the city and the Riley Foundation.

Laura Carmichael, the director of Community Development in Meridian, declined an interview about the Temple Theater and whether the food and beverage tax could be used to help other arts institutions.

Other cities, such as Hattiesburg and Biloxi, have purchased and refurbished their own theaters, which host comedians, touring shows and other entertainment. 

“Personally, I think a public body or institution needs to buy it,” said Bob Luke, a Meridian architect. “Some places just need to be public. It works better.”

The City of Meridian has commissioned Luke to develop a master plan to create a roadmap for the future of Meridian. Luke said that the Temple, along with the MSU Riley Center and the Max, all play a role.

Bob Luke

“It’s all part of that downtown opportunity for arts and entertainment. I think it’s an important building for downtown and important to our quality of life.”

–Bob Luke

“It’s all part of that downtown opportunity for arts and entertainment,” Luke said. “I think it’s an important building for downtown and important to our quality of life.”

Luke noted that the building, one of best examples of Moorish architecture in the country, has earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Comparing the Temple to the Riley Center is “apples and oranges,” he said.

“It’s totally different than the Riley Center,” Luke said. 

The best path forward for the Temple, Luke said, would be for a personal interest group to push to save it, such as the groups that pushed for the Riley Center and the Threefoot Building, an historic downtown building that is being converted into a Courtyard by Marriott. 

“It’s been a part of raising our kids here,” Luke said. “It’s part of the fabric of the community.”

Temple history

According to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), the Hamasa Shriners built the Temple in 1924 as a meeting space, leasing the unfinished auditorium to the Saenger movie chain in 1927 to pay for the final costs of construction. 

“At its opening dedication it was called “Mississippi’s finest theater” and Meridian became ‘one of the headlines of progressive large cities in the field of entertainment,’ ” according to the website. 

“It’s been such a landmark building in Meridian,” Mingo Tingle, the chief of Technical Preservation Services at MDAH, said. “It’s in such great shape and it could be used for so many things… It would be a shame to lose the Temple.”

Mingo Tingle

“It could bring in a lot of tourism money. There’s not another theater in Mississippi like the Temple. It’s unique.”

–Mingo Tingle, Mississippi Department of Archives & History

In other cities, Tingle said he’d seen government bodies or private developers revitalize their theaters with success. The Saenger Theater in Hattiesburg, owned by the city, operates as part of its tourism arm. MDAH has helped Biloxi redevelop its theater. Two theaters in Jackson, in the Fondren district, have found success re-opening as movie theaters or concert venues.

“It could bring in a lot of tourism money,” Tingle said. “There’s not another theater in Mississippi like the Temple. It’s unique.”

Especially with the buildup of arts in downtown Meridian, Tingle said the arts community could feed off of itself. Similar to efforts to refurbish the Threefoot Building, there are federal and state tax incentives for developers looking to invest in historic buildings.

“There are tools they can use to offset the rehabilitation,” Tingle said. “I think there’s different ways of doing this.”

Potential for collaboration

With so many art entities in town, the ability to work together and coordinate becomes apparent to those in charge.

“We can do a lot of things together,” Mark Tullos, the CEO and president of the Max, said. “But we’re still in our infancy. We’re just getting our walking shoes on.”

Tullos said that the Max could rent out the facilities for a specific series or film festivals, such as Rails to Reels, planned for later this month. 

“I think part of the challenge is making sure we save it and preserve it,” Tullos said. “At the same time, we’re going to need to see additional investment… but we’re going to see a lot more traffic on Front Street and in downtown. That’s when the Temple Theater plays an important role in our cultural experience.”

Smith told The Meridian Star editorial board in September that although collaboration among the Temple, Max and MSU Riley Center would be a good idea, there have been no discussions among the the leaders of the three venues.

Dennis Sankovich, the executive director of the MSU Riley Center, and Smith regularly have lunch together, Smith said, but they do not discuss business.

“I work very closely with Roger. Roger’s a friend of mine,” Sankovich said. 

Smith said he considers the Temple a rental facility, with both the theater and the ballroom, and that he didn’t promote the shows that use it. Sankovich said that, as a state-owned entity, he attends booking conferences and plans The MSU Riley Center’s calendar in advance.

Because of the state and calendar contract restrictions, Sankovich said that Smith has different opportunities. 

“I send outside promoters looking to bring shows to Meridian to Roger,” Sankovich said. “I’ll send him certain groups that are looking for a (that size of) venue or a certain number of tickets… we don’t pick up dates like that outside of our planned series.”

With Smith working independently and Sankovich working with Mississippi State University, the two can approach different types of performances.

“I think it helps to keep a variety and there’s a lot of different events,” Sankovich said. “We bounce ideas off of each other… The Temple is a really important asset to the community.”

The future 

Smith describes the Temple as a miniature version of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, with a 40-person pit orchestra and room for 1,600 audience members. 

Its historic Robert Morton organ is one of its prized features.

An oil stain marks the main entrance into the theater, worn in after decades of popcorn poppers at the concession stand. 

In April, a tornado crashed into the marque, which still has missing letters and broken boards. Smith said he has raised funds to replace it and hopes to install some additional digital boards, tallying all of the shows at the Temple, in the near future.

“Everybody has been very kind to me in Meridian and it has been very great,” Smith said. “We’re just in a little bit of a crunch.”

Smith estimates it would take between $3 to $6 million to restore the theater to its previous glory, though the theater has no structural problems and the roof is new.

His operating budget is less than $300,000 per year, he said.

“There’s been no savior other than hard work and people patronizing the theater,” Smith said. “The reality is… people don’t seem interested in historic buildings here.”

Whatever happens to the Temple, Roger said he wouldn’t want any new buyer to use the theater for anything other than its original purpose.

“I would like to find somebody bigger and better than me that has the resources to purchase it,” Smith said. “I feel like I’m not serving the theater as well as it could be.”