MATTAWA - There will be stage actors again at Wahluke High School, if drama coach Bill Higgins has his way.

Higgins is an English and American Literature teacher, but his first love is drama. His major at Lewis and Clark State College was theater.

Hoping to give his students greater meaning for what goes on in the classroom, Higgins has taken on the drama assignment. He hopes to turn this first play into a drama program.

"My thinking was if we could just get the play going," he said.

Easier said than done. Although Higgins got permission for the project, other things got in the way.

Higgins had hoped to pull off the play in November after the fall sports season and before the winter sports season. But he lost actors along the way due to the transportation problems inherent in a far-flung school district.

"Some of the kids just couldn't be here at the right time," he said.

But Higgins persevered, and the play is on for 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 16.

So far, said Higgins, "the actors have been great." They are doing better than he might have expected from actors who have never been on stage.

But some of them have been on stage, according to lead actor Fernando Valdovinos. He, for instance, plays football and basketball.

"I have performed in front of large crowds. I don't get nervous," he said.

Valdovinos, a junior, plays the role of the father in the play "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." Playing the role of his wife is Tania Lamas. Lamas's sister Natalie is also in the play

"I'm pretty demanding, and they know it because they have me in class," Higgins said.

"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" is about a community that attempts to put on a Christmas play while excluding members of an outcast family. The outcasts are eventually included and even play the roles of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

"How are you going to do a Christmas play and not be open?" Higgins commented.

Interestingly, Higgins's wife Tracy is directing the same play at Quincy High School at about the same time. The couple ended up in the Columbia Basin 1995 when Higgins took the job of principal the Quincy Junior High.

"My expectations are already high, but they will rise as time passes," Higgins said.