Imel visits hometown

One of Portland’s favorite sons came home Tuesday night.
Longtime T.V. entertainer Jack Imel regaled a packed house at Jay County Historical Society’s museum with stories from his decades on the Lawrence Welk Show.
Imel, who has written a book about his show business career, was a featured performer on the Welk show for 25 years. For 17 years he was also an associate producer of the show, which continues to live on in re-runs.
“It kept right on going, and it’s still going,” Imel told a hometown crowd that included some of his classmates from Portland High School.
The book — “Jack Imel: My Years with Lawrence Welk as a Tap-Dancing Marimba Player” — was originally intended for his grandchildren but is finding a broader audience.
“I wrote this book first of all for my family,” Imel said Tuesday.
Imel’s marimba is on display at the historical museum, and program chair Rob Weaver jokingly suggested Imel would like to do his trademark leap over the instrument as a way of beginning his remarks.
“It’s not that I can’t jump over it,” quipped Imel, who will soon turn 82. “But you have to remember that instrument’s over 50 years old.”
Each week, he recalled, Welk would ask him how he wanted to be introduced, and Imel would respond, “Just say I’m from Portland, Indiana.”
“I love Portland,” he added. “I always have.”
Imel began taking dance lessons at age 4 and took up the marimba at age 9.
“Xylophone’s harder to spell,” he joked.
By the time he was 12, he was making a living as a performer. His first professional appearance was at Portland Moose Lodge.
“I bet I entered every talent contest in the state of Indiana and half of Ohio, and I never won,” Imel said. “But I stuck with it.”
After graduation from high school, he attended Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music in Indianapolis. An audition won him a spot with the Horace Heidt Band, and Imel was soon on tour. He continued to perform after enlisting in the Navy during the Korean War, winning the all-Navy talent contest in 1955 and ’56.
An audition tape led to an appearance on Welk’s Saturday night TV show on ABC.
“He hired me right on television,” Imel recalled.
The show ended its ABC run in 1982, though it continues on PBS. Imel continued to perform on tour and in Branson, but made his farewell appearance onstage in 2008 at Bearcreek Farms.
His affection for Welk was apparent in anecdote after anecdote on Tuesday.
“Lawrence was one of a kind,” he said. “You might say the guy raised my family.”[[In-content Ad]]