Meet Jan Ewing! Jan is in her 24th year of teaching theater at North Hall High School. She is married to Gary Ewing who is a banker at Mount Vernon Bank, and they have two grown children. She grew up in Connecticut with a dream of being on Broadway. Jan was a successful actress but eventually wanted to set down roots and fell in love with Gainesville.
We want to thank Jan for spending time with us recently and telling us more about her life and love of Hall County.
Question: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
Answer: “When I was four, I wanted to be on stage. I thought I wanted to be a Rockette, but I didn’t know you had to be six feet tall and thin. I took dance lessons, and my dream when I was four years old was that nobody else would come and show up and I would have a solo. And my mother at the time was sort of like, ‘Oh my gosh, what is this child?’ I just knew that was always my passion to be on stage. I thought I wanted to be a dancer, then I saw ‘Annie’ on Broadway and decided that I don’t want to be a dancer, I want to be her.
“I was very active in my church, like in the church choir. I took dance lessons, I love singing and dancing and all of that. When I was growing up, I did a lot of theater and went to a school specifically because they had a strong theater program. And then my parents wanted me to go to college. I was a music ed major…Well, after two years I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to teach.’ I just didn’t want to teach music, I’m not a piano player, really. I can play, but not vet very well, not a guitarist, I can’t accompany a band or a chorus.
“At that point, I auditioned for a school in New York called AMDA which is the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and I got in. I moved to New York City and went to school for two years my address was on Broadway, and I lived in the Beacon Hotel. Did that and stayed in New York for about a year and worked and then went back to Connecticut but it’s only an hour commute so I still did that for about two more years. Where I might have a tour or I might have a regional theater gig, so I was making a living as an actress. After three years I was like ‘Oh my gosh I want to buy a new car’ because my car was breaking down, And at that point, I don’t want to worry about where my next paycheck comes from. I also was at a point in my life where I was in my 20s…I knew I wanted to get married and have kids, and that was not conducive to have that job anymore.
“I looked at schools that would take all my credits because I had a whole bunch of credits, but not a degree. And Brenau was one of them. I had a really good friend who had just moved to Atlanta, I came and visited him and then visited Brenau. I fell into teaching theater because I graduated from Brenau and my professor told me that they had a job opening for a theater teacher at Brenau Academy, which was like a boarding school for girls. I was just teaching them the things that I had learned. I had my daughter and then six years later, I went ahead and got certified to teach. And that was 23 years ago when I got hired and started here.”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County, and what do you love there?
A: “I like food a lot, so I like a lot of food. My husband and I really like to go to Recess. I love their appetizer figs wrapped in dates, it has goat cheese, figs, and bacon. And my husband loves the fried green beans that they have as well. I also really like Taqueria Tsunami and their fried fish tacos.”
Q: How long have you lived or worked in Hall County?
A: “I moved here in January of 1993.”
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met in Hall County and why?
A: “Rosemary Dodd. She just passed away recently and she was family to me. She took me under her wing and adopted me like a daughter. She was a very unique presence in Hall County. She grew up in Gainesville. She was an artist and philanthropist, she was unique and said what she felt and didn’t put any bones about it. Before she died, she was telling people what to do and she said, ‘I’m going to know so many people in heaven, I don’t know who I should see first.’ She was very unique, she was a colorful person in so many ways. And I think she helped me become even more colorful in my ways. She was definitely an inspiration to me.”
Q: What is your favorite childhood memory?
A: “I would have to say like the normalcy of my childhood, I had an incredible family and I had incredible parents, and I thought everybody had that. When I was growing up, I didn’t know that not everybody had great parents. My mom and dad were blue-collar workers and they were hard workers and they were generous. We didn’t have a lot, but we never wanted for anything. I became a self-confident person because I had this super secure nest that I grew up in. So I would have to say just eating as a family every night together, or holidays. It’s not like I have a mountaintop memory of my childhood, I think it’s the feeling I had because I had a family that was very close, very loving, very caring, and generous to other people. And I was super blessed and super lucky to have that kind of upbringing.”
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?
A: “Italy. My heritage is Italian. We’ve gone to Spain, Portugal, and England but I’ve never been to Italy and I want to go see, not only just beautiful Italy, but I want to see where my family came from.”
Q: What is the first production you remember seeing?
A: “The first musical I went to was ‘The Fantastics.’ And I remember we went on this field trip to Broadway and our teachers telling us about it, and said, ‘in the beginning of the show, the song means one thing, and at the end of the show they sing it again but it has a whole different meaning.’ We went and saw it and I didn’t get it at all. And then I would say the next musical I saw was ‘Annie.’”
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: “A mantra that I have that I don’t know that everybody has, I think part of having a child with special needs, I am always very aware of my outliers of students, the kid who’s sitting by themselves or the kid who’s not feeling included. I feel like it doesn’t take much to be inclusive. Also, offer people grace because things happen in the world. And then forgive, life is too short to not just forgive and carry anger around.”
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: “In May, my husband and I are going on an Alaskan cruise, and I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. So that’s a bucket list and we’re checking it off. And then Italy, but I’m not checking that off yet, maybe soon.”
Q: What local business makes you the most nostalgic about Hall County and why?
A: “I would have to say Green’s Grocery because Green’s has been around forever. When I first met my husband, he was working at Green’s and we knew Lillie Mae and Frank personally, and we know Ed Waller, who’s the owner there now. Those are like fond memories and the people we’ve known along the way that have owned and been there.”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Hall County?
A: “I like that it is small and you know people and there’s a community. I feel like it is changing and I like some of the growth I enjoy it because I love new restaurants and new things that are happening. I certainly welcome people who are coming in because I was one of those people but I think people still know each other.”
Q: Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
A: “Retired and living on a yacht. No, I’m kidding. In four years, I’ll be 60 and at that point, you can retire. I’m not saying that I would not still do theater or that I would not still work, but I don’t think I would work full-time. I don’t know, who knows but maybe retired and doing something else that’s a passion.”
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: “I think that as a theater teacher, most of my students don’t look at me and think I was an athlete. But I played softball and I was really very good at it. I was on an all-star team and played fast pitch. That was a long time ago so I don’t think I could swing a bat anymore.”
Q: Describe what “home” means to you.
A: “I am big into sensory stuff, so I love for things to smell good. And I feel like my house smells like home if it smells fall kind of scents. And I think that family time and food because we like to eat. I’ve carried that tradition on from my family where we sit around a table every night and we have a meal as a family and we say, ‘What’s our favorite thing? What’s your highlight and your low light from the day?’”
Q: If you had a full-time staff member that was fully paid for, who would you choose?
A: “I would say a Chef who would make yummy tasting food that’s healthy. And then a personal trainer so I could feel healthy and lose weight. But then, because I would work out all the time, I would want my own masseuse. Maybe they could split, it wouldn’t all be full-time. I would have three part-time people because you can’t like work out all day, you can’t eat all day and you wouldn’t want massage all day.”
