We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Karl Pratt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Karl thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

In mid-2018, a friend convinced me to take a chance on something new. I had been working at my alma mater’s (Fort Hays State University) Alumni Association full-time as a communications coordination for the first four years following graduation in 2014 when I had made the hard decision to not pursue a graduate degree in music. While I was heartbroken to not continue my path and goals in music, the realization of taking on additional and insane debt and the fact that maybe that path wasn’t really what I wanted helped me to choose to stay put and take advantage of the job at the Alumni Association. The job itself had recently been increased to full-time status with benefits and was very appealing, especially post-graduation. I’d also had the fortune of working as a student employee with the Alumni Association throughout my entire college career, taking on more and more work than the typical student employee, much of which carried over into the professional position.

Fast forward to 2018. While I loved my job, my coworkers, and the Hays community, I knew I needed a change. That need led me to moving back home to my rural community of 1,200 people in northwest Kansas — Hoxie. I had the safety net of family and familiarity, but I left my full-time job for the unknown. That unknown quickly became a life that included me “piece-mealing a career” for myself as I used to say. I was hired as the first-ever staff person for our local Sheridan County Community Foundation at 15 hours/week. I began building a private lessons studio teaching piano and voice in four communities across the region. I got a job as a choir director at a church in the next community over. And I started working with the friend who convinced me to move home to help build and grow an arts nonprofit she had created in 2015 known as the Main Street Arts Council.

I’ve now been home for just over 5 years and can say that a lot of wonderful things have happened, and I’ve been able to be a part of them all.

I now just completed two years as the full-time director of the Sheridan County Community Foundation and have been able help add $1million+ to our assets, secured several hundred of thousands in grant funds in support of some large-scale projects dedicated to serving childcare needs, and so much more! And I am fortunate to enjoy full work benefits including health insurance, PTO, and retirement once again, which is pretty great! :)

Since the pandemic, I’ve been able to grow a private studio of 20-25 students just in Hoxie, allowing me to no longer have to travel which I much prefer.

While I loved the church choir, I made the decision to quit that job just before the pandemic hit as I had just bought a building on Main Street in Hoxie in which to live and house my lessons studio, needing the extra time to get it set up the way I wanted.

And, together with my friend, we have grown our cornerstone program with the arts council, entitled the Main Street Summer Theater Festival, in which we produce full-scale youth musicals across the northwest Kansas region. The program first began with productions in Hoxie, then adding one in Atwood, then Goodland, and once I officially came on the scene in summer of 2019, we added Colby and Quinter. Just last year in 2023, we were able to add Oakley, and now have six communities in our annual festival lineup!

Our program is free for all area kids to participate. We conduct auditions in each community, then begin rehearsals for each respective show in early June, culminating in performances beginning the end of June and now through the first weekend in August! We’ve been able to develop a budget that provides for the compensation of festival staff which includes our festival manager (me), directors, choreographers (filled by area dance teachers), and student interns who assist us with all aspects of the shows. For a few months each year, we have created our own little music industry in the region. Our participant numbers continue to grow, and it is all made possible through the generous support of many, many area community foundations, private foundations, corporate grant and sponsorships, local businesses and individual sponsorships, donations, ticket sales, and additional fundraisers.

The theater program, while consuming my entire summer, and many weekends in preparation throughout the year, is truly one of my pride and joys. It’s been an honor to help create it and work to see it grow. And most importantly, it provides that opportunity, at least once a year, for the youth who have a passion or develop a passion for music, theater, performing, and the arts in general!

While overwhelmed at times, the risk I took five years ago, “jumping off the cliff,” as my friend and I would joke, has paid off. Through a lot of hard work and assistance from so many I’ve encountered in my life in the past five years, I’ve been able to flap my wings and stay afloat to this day!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a native of Hoxie, Kansas, a small, rural community in Northwest Kansas. I graduated from Fort Hays State University in 2014 with a B.M. in vocal performance. I have had a lifelong passion for musical theater and from high school on developed an enjoyment of classical singing in artsong and opera genres. I began studying piano at the age of 10 in 4th grade. While I do not consider myself an accomplished pianist by any means, I do enjoy playing and teaching beginning piano lessons. I thoroughly enjoy teaching the beginning theory concepts and especially get a kick out of the moments when concepts finally start to click for my young students, and they can see the logic behind things.

Following graduation from college, I was asked by the Hays Community Theatre to help with music direction for a production of “Shrek The Musical” in 2016. I was always nervous to take on musical direction of a show having only ever been on the stage performing prior, but the situation felt right, and I enjoyed every aspect, taking over full direction, both stage and musical, of the following year’s production of “Mary Poppins.” An experience I’ll never forget and look back on with fond memories.

I’ve furthered my directorial experiences, primarily with youth, working with the Main Street Arts Council in production of our annual musical theater festival.

And I since late 2018 when I moved back home and started helping out the arts council while also creating a part-time position with the local community foundation, I have learned a tremendous amount about administration, fundraising, grant writing, program development and activation, and so much more. All of my experiences the past five years marrying work, experience, connections, partnerships, etc., between the arts, community foundation, and economic development worlds have ALL made me better at each “job” and project I seek to complete. I feel fortunate to be able to swim in a variety of streams on the daily in whatever work I might be doing for whichever hat I seem to be wearing at any given moment.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Focusing on the theater festival, I’ll say that what drives me is to provide the opportunity for musical theater expression in my own backyard. Growing up, I had very limited opportunities at home and in the region to perform and perform in musicals, especially. I was able to attend “Broadway at Bethel” camp in Newton, Kansas (near Wichita) several years as well as the Butler Showchoir Camp at Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kansas (also near Wichita), experiences I both loved and carry fond memories and even life-long friends from to this day!

I fully support going out of town and region to enjoy these kinds of experiences, but I believe those opportunities should be “in addition to” having local and nearby opportunities. The past five years, I’ve been amazed at the number and level of musical and arts abilities in youth in our own backyards. Being able to help foster, develop, and grow those talents in our own small way only makes everything and everyone better.

The arts are powerful…I think we all finally got a glimpse of that during the pandemic. I just hope we don’t forget how important they were during those dark times and that we continue to focus, support, and increase support in all manners for their existence, development, and enjoyment in this game called life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Don’t limit yourself to your educational degrees, experience, etc. You are capable of far more things, and you may discover new things that you are much better at, enjoy more, and that can advance your life experience more than you may ever know. It may feel painful and cause you a lot of stress, frustration, and anxiety, but if you can keep the goal in mind, keep at the process, then you will find the rewards and benefits along the way…and things will get easier and feel much better.

I continue to deal with this everyday experiencing both ends of the journey, but so far, so good! 😊

In a nutshell, I had to learn how to allow myself to grow and grow outside of a life-long preconceived notion of who I thought I was going to be or supposed to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mainstreetartscouncil.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mainstreetartscouncil
• Other: Sheridan County Community Foundation Links: Website: https://www.growsheridancounty.org/ Facebook.com: https://www.facebook.com/sheridanccf/