WADENA — The Wadena Madhatters Community Theatre board recently voted to officially rename two of the organization's scholarships.
The Camp Madhatter Scholarship Fund has been renamed to the Mim Maas Memorial Scholarship Fund, in memory of the late Mim Maas's lifelong devotion to helping young people as well as her devotion to theatre. The Madhatters Fine Arts Award has been renamed the Madhatters Community Theatre Scholarship. All other elements of the scholarships remain the same, according to a Madhatters news release.
“Mim Maas was a very memorable woman; wise, kind and caring,” shared camp attendee Michael Schmidt during the 2019 Camp Madhatters performance. The group dedicated the performance to Maas following her passing in July. “This program would not be possible without community support; no one typified that more than Mim. On behalf of Camp Madhatters 2019, thank you Mim and goodbye. You will be dearly missed.”
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In all of her community involvements including as Madhatters director, Maas was joyfully alive and shared a friendly spirit. She welcomed Lora Foust, current Madhatters board president, to Wadena with help on a place to live and later welcomed her to the theatre program. Foust had been in plays in high school but otherwise only church skits for many years.
“It was a great experience for me to get back in it. After all of these years I remembered what I loved about it,” Foust said. “She was like that, she saw the potential in people and she brought it out. It wasn’t just kids—I mean, I’m not a kid anymore—and she … just wanted everybody to enjoy the culture of the community.”
While involved in “anything to enhance the community,” as Foust said, from the Garden Club to the Wadena County Historical Society, friends still miss her. She worked at her daycare center and the Pioneer Journal, coordinated foreign exchange student placement in Wadena, and volunteered with the Brainerd Women’s Shelter and New York Mills Regional Cultural Center. Maas also received the Outstanding Community Arts Leader Award for Wadena County from the Five Wings Art Council in 2012.
Maas quickly “made an impression” in their four years of friendship, as Foust said, and many in the community would agree.
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Along with Kevin Tendall, who passed away in 2021 and shared in community plays, served with the local VFW and drove students as a school bus driver, Foust said, “We lost such an important part of our community.”
