By Chelsea Kuykendall

One of the most peculiar things a professor had to was “bailing a student out of jail.” It’s hard to imagine that theatre professor, William “Mac” Bozman, while seemingly soft spoken, would have such a story. As I walked through the conservatory, I came across Bozman just as he was stepping out for his stage lighting course. Lucky for me, an hour or so later, I was able to sit down with him for a few minutes for an interview before he was off again, busy with preparations for the next production, The Trojan Women.

A cursory search of Bozman on the Shenandoah Faculty website reveals that he has been employed by Shenandoah University since 1975, teaching classes in scenic and lighting design, technical theatre and theatre history. In addition to teaching and designing for Shenandoah’s academic year theatre productions, he has also been a designer for Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre since it was founded, according to Shenandoah’s website. As we spoke, he said that he has been involved in these aspects of theatre since he was in high school, liking it so much that he has been doing it since then. It is then no wonder why he has been here for 40 years, when he says his favorite thing about SU is being with students.

One moment stood out as Bozman’s craziest, explaining how he came to rescue of one of his students. “The student had been pulled over for speeding,” he stated. “However he/she also had a lot of unpaid parking tickets, so they took him/her to jail.” Unfortunately at the time, the student was also the only one who knew how to program the light board. “We had a performance coming up, so I needed him/her, but I also didn’t want him/her to have to be in jail long.” So after receiving the phone call he headed down to post the bail. “After they had told me the total, I was pulling out my checkbook to write it out, when they told me they didn’t accept checks, had to be in cash. Then I had to go out and find an ATM…”

 So, Bozman’s advice for future students is simply this: “If you get a speeding ticket, you better pay. Not everyone is going to bail you out of jail.”