ILONA SAARI
JIM HALVERSON
JIM IN MAN OF LAMANCHA PHOTO BY MARTY BABAYCO
Meet Jim Halverson, born in Winnebago (the town, not the camper) a rural farming community named for the Winnebago Indians in southern Minnesota. Not a place with much call for actors (zero, actually), but doctors were always needed, and Jim’s father, Don, was one of two physicians for the town and neighboring communities. His mom, Jane, had a love and talent for oil painting, a talent Jim empathically claims he did not inherit.
ano and trumpet lessons. He loved the trumpet. Piano, not so much. But, at age 13, his life was uprooted. One of Don’s patients was holed up in his home with a shotgun, threatening to kill his wife and himself. The man refused to talk to the police, but he would talk to his doctor. Unarmed, Don bravely entered the couple’s home and talked the man into surrendering. This had a profound effect on Jim’s mother, enough for the family to leave Winnebago. Don and Jane packed up Jim and his younger sister, Sue, and headed for the warm sun of San Bernardino, California, where Jane enrolled in a Fine Arts Master program to work on her painting, and Don resumed his work as a family doctor.
He did find his artistic niche, though, in music and took pi-
After graduating from high school, Jim enrolled in the Uni-
That title question is sometimes called out to a theater audience if someone’s sick or injured. But in Ojai the audience might look to the stage, instead. More on that later...
12
OM — March 2021
