Virginia Living Magazine has posted my cover feature on Virginia's surviving drive-in theaters.
The story begins:
A short row of cars is lined up at the entrance to Hull’s Drive-In Theatre, which sits just off Route 11 in Lexington, not far from a fireworks vendor and a truck stop. The warm late-April Sunday is turning brisk as the sun lowers and longtime Hull’s ticket taker Sam Newcomer stands outside the rickety ticket booth nursing a cough.
“Fridays and Saturdays are busier. Sundays are usually the slow night,” he tells me after he collects $7 for admission from a man and his Shih Tzu in a late model truck.
The sounds of “At The Hop” are echoing off the mostly empty drive-in movie lot, and the smell of popcorn is in the air. Hull’s opened in 1950 as the Lee Drive-In Theatre and, unlike many open-air cinemas constructed during that time, is still doing business today. When longtime owner Sebert W. Hull passed away 15 years ago, a group of Lexingtonians formed the Hull’s Angels and rallied to save it, boxy metal speakers and all. Today, Hull’s is the only community-owned, nonprofit drive-in theater in the U.S.
Click here to read "The Big Picture."
Photo by the mighty Cade Martin!
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