Dr. Shellie O’Neal to Perform at Jacksonville College
Jacksonville College invites the community to be our guests for the forty-seventh annual Manley Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. in Buckner Chapel on the College campus. This year our event will feature a program by Dr. Shellie O’Neal entitled God Bless America: A WWII Radio Hour. In this performance, O’Neal portrays Sally Brennan, a fictitious radio host. Throughout the course of the 54-minute performance, O’Neal sings six of our nation’s anthems, including “God Bless America”, “The Star Spangled Banner”, “God of our Fathers”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “America the Beautiful”, and “My Country, Tis of Thee.” Historical background for each of the anthems is provided throughout the play and she includes quotes and perspectives from the Founding Fathers. Radio commercials from the era are also featured.
Dr. Shellie O’Neal has served as the Chair of Theatre at Navarro College for 24 years and has directed over 90 NC Theatre productions. She has written 28 plays, two of which have won Texas state playwriting competitions and three of which have been published. O’Neal grew up in Carthage, Texas, and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Tyler and her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. She started performing God Bless America: A WWII Radio Hour in the summer of 2019 after researching our nation’s anthems in Williamsburg, Virginia; Brandon, Vermont; Boston, Massachusetts; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Baltimore, Maryland. One of O’Neal’s children’s plays, 911 Gnomes: A Christmas Emergency, was chosen as one of twenty plays worldwide to be performed at the inaugural RAVE Theater Festival in New York City in August 2019. She is the proud granddaughter of Ordria Gipson, a U.S. Marine who served at Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Bougainville during WWII and who was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his bravery.
The Nora Belle Manley Lecture Series, renamed as the Manley Distinguished Lecture Series, is a tribute to a well-loved instructor at Jacksonville College whose tenure was characterized by an unwavering dedication to the academic and cultural development of the JC community. This program was organized by the Barnwell Anderson chapter of the Walter Prescott Webb Historical Society.
Dr. Shellie O’Neal