
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 4, 1993                   TAG: 9308040060
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

They belong together, country music stars and bales of hay. So it makes sense that country-and-Western singers are among the folks trying hardest to help the Midwest farmers and other rural dwellers who've seen their crops and hopes drowned in the flood of the century.

Clint Black is attempting to coordinate a variety of efforts through a project called Operation Heartland. Black's project will be run by the international disaster-relief and development agency Operation USA and will provide funds and supplies necessary to reopen small-scale, community-based social programs, such as child-care centers, food banks and clinics, in flood-ravaged areas of the Midwest.

Other performers are invited to participate, but Black is especially encouraging members of the Nashville, Tenn., music community to join his effort.

Black is launching the program by donating the proceeds of his Aug. 27 concert with Wynonna in Des Moines, Iowa, one of the cities hit hardest by the floods.

The relief effort will assist only programs not receiving some other type of reimbursement and ones that have public support and a reputation for effectiveness.

Tax-deductible donations from the public are welcome and can be made by calling 800-678-7255 or by mailing them to Operation Heartland, 8320 Melrose Ave., Suite 200, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069.

Luminaries are gathering this week in Winston-Salem, N.C., for an event billed as the world's largest festival of black theater. Sidney Poitier, Della Reese, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte were among the stars at the opening-night gala of the weeklong National Black Theatre Festival.

The event began Monday and is expected to draw 25,000 people to the Benson Convention Center.

It will include 30 black American theater companies and 82 performances.

John Amos, who had roles in "Roots" and the TV series "Good Times," will perform his one-man show "Halley's Comet." He plays an 87-year-old man reflecting on changes that took place from the time the comet appeared in 1910 to its reappearance in 1986.

Others expected include Gregory Hines, Phylicia Rashad of "The Cosby Show" and Richard Roundtree, who played John Shaft in the movies.

by CNB