Bernard Thane Wilson

Thane Wilson, who grew up in Bolivar, Missouri and later devoted all his working life to show business, died last week (December 19, 2006) at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He was 46. The cause was failure of liver and kidneys, traceable to a case of childhood hepatitis suffered when he was in second grade at Mitchell Elementary School. At the time of his death Wilson was Senior Corporate Director of Live Entertainment for the 35 parks in the Six Flags chain. He had worked for Six Flags since 1999. He kept a home in Jackson, N.J. and had offices in New York and at the entertainment company's premier park, also in Jackson. At age 13, the year before he entered Bolivar High School, Wilson talked his parents into letting him work as a food vendor and do odd jobs at the Ozarks Empire Fair in Springfield. Since he was not old enough to drive, his mother, Jessie, also took a job at the fair in order to drive him to and from work. The two of them then began several years of fair work in food trailers in Springfield and at fairs in Sedalia, Oklahoma, Nebraska and other locales. After this taste of show biz, young Wilson was hooked for life. He was musically inclined from an early age and quickly learned to play piano, organ, keyboard, harp and drums. While taking a degree in business at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Wilson played drums in the Marching Mizzou band two years and then served two years as drum major. School behind him, Wilson struck off for Orlando and Disney World, then a relatively new and, for him, an exciting part of show business. At Disney he became a dancer and, at times, also played the costume characters of Goofy, Pluto and the Mad Hatter. In the daily parades in costume he often saw people he knew from Bolivar but was never permitted to speak to anyone along the parade route. It was in Orlando that Wilson also discovered that show biz is an ephemeral, fast-changing world and during his life there he also worked for the Universal Studios theme park, became entertainment manager at a night club and each year did four stints as producer of live entertainment aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines ships sailing our of Ft. Lauderdale. Then in 1998 Wilson, unemployed at the time, took a freelance assignment from a small entertainment-services company in Orlando and agreed to acquaint himself with amusement-park construction, about which he knew nothing. He had always been on stage or directing those who were. The company gave him several months of schooling. His first professional assignment in this new-to-him field was construction of a Batman pavilion at Six Flags in Denver. Thane Wilson, a friendly, ebullient person, always gave his whole heart to any job he attempted, and when Batman construction ran afoul of the city's red tape his cleverness in getting the pavilion finished on time so impressed Six Flags executives that on the spot they hired him away from the Orlando company. His life at Six Flags immediately became a whirlwind of travel as he auditioned, rehearsed and directed the live shows at the parks. Wilson regularly visited each of the parks in this country and once spent seven months building a Batman pavilion at the park in Mexico City were, he later observed, work goes more slowly than in the States. He also visited parks in Europe. Bernard Thane Wilson was the son of Charles Bernard Wilson and Jessie Alberta Martin Wilson. He was born on his mother's 33rd birthday, February 11, 1960. His father was a beef producer and also operated a commission business at the stockyards in Springfield. His father died in the 1980's. His mother later married Robert G. Beason, a retired writer and editor. The couple lives in Bolivar. Wilson never married and sometimes observed, in reference to his constant travel, "If I had, I wouldn't be now." A Memorial service is planned at the First Christian Church in Bolivar at 2:00pm on their joint birthday, February 11, 2007. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Butler Funeral Home. The family suggests contributions to the Music Department c/o Bolivar High School. Friends may sign the guest book or send private condolences at www.butlerfuneralhome.com PDF Printable Version

Bernard Thane Wilson

February 11, 1960 - December 19, 2006