It is time to order your Westfield Sesquicentennial books.

Support our troops

Several businesses have joined together to sponsor purchasing phone cards for our troops. Flags will be placed on every yard in Akron and will have several coupons for specials at participating businesses in a gift bag.
Bull Bash
The Big Sioux River Bull Bash is July 5, 6:30 p.m. at the Hawarden Saddle Club grounds.
Akron Museum

Lights, camera, action

by Julie Ann Madden

Sound ready? Camera Ready? Roll sound. Roll camera. Scene 63 B. Take One. Mark it. And the basketball scenes for “Winning Favor” began filming June 24. Filming took place at Maurice-Orange City-Floyd Valley gymnasium in Orange City. “Winning Favor” is based on a true story of the two Orange City basketball teams who won their respective state basketball championships in 2005: MOC-FV and Unity Christian. “(My story) was kind of a reflection on the season,” said Anita Bomgaars, whose youngest son, Curt, was on the MOC-Floyd Valley state championship team. “I’ve been around sports teams in some capacity my whole life,” she said. “I sensed the fact that this was a very unusual group of guys, an unusual story so I wrote it down.” Then people kept the story alive by sharing their stories with her she told The Akron Hometowner. “When I looked at this story I kept thinking -- what should this be,” said Bomgaars, explaining she felt it would be a good movie. About a year later she realized that a local college professor was also a professional screen writer." I gathered up my courage,” said Bomgaars, “and in about December 2007, I gave my story to Jamey Durham and his wife, Donna. They read it and said we are going to make this movie this summer.” After interviewing all the team members from the winning MOC-FV team, they realized it wasn’t just a documentary of a winning season. “The story wasn’t as much about MOC-Floyd Valley and Unity Christian both winning the state championships in the same year as it was about all the relationships they had with each other, with their families, with the coaches -- how everybody had sort of been changed by it,” said Bomgaars, who is co-producer with Donna Durham. Bomgaars is the script consultant while Jamey Durham is the director and screen writer. “We just wanted to preserve the story,” she said, “and we also wanted to show how you can develop winning teams by still having fun and still having relationships, can be competitive with your friends and still maintain a friendship.” There is an ongoing story line between some MOC-Floyd Valley and Unity players who stayed friends from when they were little boys to the very end, said Bomgaars. “It’s a movie about Northwest Iowa and celebrating how much fun we have in basketball.” The cast includes former and current MOC-FV basketball players and elementary and high school MOC-FV students and athletes. In addition, some are professional actors such as Matthew Ashford, originally from Davenport, IA, who played Jack Devereaux in Days of Our Lives; Candice Rose of JAG, ER and Law & Order; and Bonnie Johnson, who plays a grandmother in this movie, and Iowan Billy Rogers. The movie crew includes people from Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina and Oregon. “We’ve brought in some really good people,” said Bomgaars, “and we feel that the Lord has really led us in who we brought together to make up our crew and actors.” Three actors playing on the basketball teams are from Akron: Kyle Hughes, David Parkinson and Mike Parkinson. In addition, fans in the stands included Craig and Mary Parkinson of Akron, Dorothy Borchers of Le Mars; a former Akron farmer, Bob Edlund, and his daughter, Amy, and her boyfriend Jim Duehn, all of Sioux City. Also seen along the sidelines “playing photographers” were the Akron Hometowner’s Julie Ann Madden and Dodie Hook. Kyle Hughes saw an advertisement about movie auditions in the Sioux City Journal while in Mrs. Mary Jane Tapper’s fifth period study hall at Akron-Westfield. He told The Akron Hometowner his high school speech experiences were the basis for his interest in trying out for this movie. It’s Hughes’ and Parkinson’s first acting outside of high school speech. “It takes a lot of precision,” said Hughes, who spent the night reenacting several basketball plays and the welcome home celebration as a member of the Unity team. He scores a layup shot and carries the Unity team’s trophy. “It’s been a fun experience, so far.” “I’m loving this,” said David Parkinson, who plays the son of MOC-FV Coach DeJong (Matthew Ashford). “It’s my first real movie. Hopefully, not the last.” The hardest part is “being patient,” said David, explaining in-between takes it always seems to be at least 15 minutes of waiting. For instance, the hot tub scenes took three days to shoot. “You do the same thing over and over (for each take),” he said. “You have to have the same facial expressions, same movements.” “Matt (Ashford) is really fun to work with,” said David. “The crew and professional actors are great. On the first day, it was like we’d all hung out before. It was kind of weird.” It also seems ironic that David, who played for Bishop Heelen last year against MOC-FV is now in the movie playing for MOC-FV against Bishop Heelan. In one scene of the sub-state game between MOC-FV and Bishop Heelan players, David will be playing against his brother, Mike. One of the basketball players’ challenges is not falling over cameraman Hunter Richards, who wears roller blades and often is filming among their feet on the court floor. “I might want to pursue this,” said David after completing a three-pointer and waiting for the next take. He will be a junior at Bishop Heelan this fall. Hughes isn’t sure what he plans to major in but he’ll be attending the University of Iowa this fall. “I had fun,” said Amy Edlund of Sioux City, who saw the advertisement for spectators and decided to make her movie debut in “Winning Favor.” “I loved it,” she told The Akron Hometowner after being a crowd actress. “I was surprised at the sitting around and waiting time. No wonder actors take up knitting while they are sitting in their trailers waiting.” The hardest part was the gymnasium had little or no air conditioning the first night of filming. “It was really hot,” said Jim Duehn of Sioux City. “Also, it was kind of hard to cheer for a town that we weren’t from.” Edlund, her father Bob, and Duehn cheered for both Boyden-Hull and Sioux Center teams during filming. “We had to ask other spectators how they cheered for their teams,” said Amy. “We had to do a silent cheer,” said Duehn, explaining they cheered as if their team had scored a hoop but without any verbal sounds. “It’s the first movie I’ve ever done, probably the last,” said Bob, and Amy and Jim agreed. They can hardly wait for opening night of the movie, which will be in the Fall of 2009. The movie crew plans to wrap up filming