“It’s always been a pearl,” Howard Pickerill said last week of the newly named Pearl Theater in Ronan.

Built in 1917 as a freestanding building on Main Street, it was owned and operated by namesake Pearl Resner beginning in 1920. The theater has been lovingly brought back to life over the past year by a largely volunteer crew at the Western Montana Musicians Co-op.

Pearlapalooza, a music festival this Saturday, May 16, celebrates its transformation from movie theater, owned and operated by Howard and Ayron Pickerill and Becky and Gary Dupuis, into a performing arts center. The inaugural event offers loads of music on stages inside and outdoors on Main Street, beginning at 1 p.m. Food, beverages and a silent auction are also on tap.

Originally called the Gaiety, one of the theater’s previous owners, Patsy Skogen (later Patsy Mueller), had changed the name to the Entertainer when she remodeled it shortly before selling it to the Pickerills in 1984. They already owned a theatre and a drive-in in Polson, and the Entertainer marked the first acquisition in a collection of cinemas they purchased across Montana and in northern Idaho.

Daughter Becky and son-in-law Gary Dupuis now own and operate seven movie houses under the umbrella of Polson Theatres Inc.

COVID took a toll on the film business, causing all theaters in the state to close for three months in 2020, including the Showboat and Entertainer. When they reopened, Dupuis say audiences were still reluctant to return.

Complicating matters further, the industry itself was in a pandemic-caused slump, and the family was in the midst of turning their twin screens in Polson into a six-plex, now called Showboat Cinema 6.

So they closed the Entertainer again in 2021 – this time for good.

According to Becky, they’ve since been approached by various community groups with ideas for the theater, ranging from a possible home for the Ronan Cooperative Brewery to gutting the building and using it for apartments. However, the building’s sloped concrete floor – installed by the Pickerills in 1991 to replace the original wooden floor – was a deterrent.

“None of those other things had really come to fruition,” Becky said. “And then the music co-op came to us and said, ‘we have this idea. We don't have any money, but we've got a lot of people with a lot of skills and we think that this building would be just perfect.’”

After reaching an agreement with the Dupuis, the group began renovating the theater in May of last year, and within eight weeks had transformed the empty building from a movie theater into a performance venue. They resumed their weekly open mics and jam sessions in the new space in early July, 2025.

Volunteers and donations helped them build a large stage in front of the screen, and clean and paint the interior. They’ve kept about 100 theatre seats, which were installed in 2015. The acoustics, said co-founder Doug Ruhman, “are pristine,” and aided by a top-notch sound system.

However, after four years of standing empty, the building had started to deteriorate. As part of the renovation, the co-op found allies at Mission West Community Development, which helped them secure grants for asbestos removal in the area behind the film screen and for new front doors (yet to be installed).

The Dupuis, who still own the building, also plan to give the restrooms an upgrade. They lease the theatre to the co-op for $250 a month, and the tenants pay the water and electricity bills.

“Uplifting our community through music”

The Western Montana Musicians Co-op, established in 2017, is itself unique – the only one in Montana and one of just a handful in the U.S. Members pay $25 for access to the building, sound system, and the plethora of instruments arranged on the stage and ready to play. The group started in the former Red Poppy building on Hwy. 93, but began looking for a new home after that building went on the market a few years ago.

Currently, membership ranges from 45 to 50, with people traveling from Kalispell, Bigfork, Missoula and Hot Springs to join the Mission Valley cohort during weekly jam sessions.

Bill Watson, the group’s treasurer, found his way to the co-op a few years ago when he moved to Polson. “I’ve been around the country, all over the place. And I've only seen one other place in Chicago that came close to this,” he said.

He describes himself as a “wannabe guitar player” who felt right at home with Ronan’s co-op, which he read about in a local newspaper.

“I invited myself down and joined and started playing the guitar again,” he said. “I'm not the quality player that a lot of them are, but I'm taking the opportunity to learn from them.”

For Ruhman, Watson’s story illustrates the power of the organization to bring people together around a shared passion for music.

“It's really become sort of a sanctuary for people,” he said. “Something to believe in, something to fight for – it's been a really important thing in people's lives.”

He notes that members leave their politics and ideological differences at the door – which can be helpful during such a divisive era. “What we're about is coming together and uplifting our community through music,” he said.

“We leave all that other stuff on the outside,” he added. “We don't bring it in with us, and that's a really important tenet of our whole group.”

The move to the Pearl a year ago has also allowed the co-op to broaden its horizons. The facility is beautifully set up for performers, and Ruhman says music lessons and concerts (like one held this spring with local performing arts group Mission Valley Live) could be among the future offerings. Eventually – if membership climbs and other revenue sources converge – they hope to purchase the building.

Meanwhile, they’re just happy to have a new home in the heart of town that holds lots of history and memories for Ronan residents. Whether the theater started in 1917 to showcase silent films as Howard Pickerill believes, or whether it began as a venue for vaudeville and live performances that Pearl Resner converted to a movie house, it’s returning to its roots.

“That's a part that we really savor because it's important,” Ruhman said. It’s also congruent with the community’s efforts to revitalize Main Street.

Becky Dupuis, whose parents stepped into the film business when she was just 6, knows how important theaters are to the soul of a community, providing a shared experience of coming together to be entertained.  

“It almost makes me tear up just thinking about it,” she said. “It's just so nice to see the theater loved like that again.”

For details on Pearlapalooza, visit www.mtmusic.org/grandopening.

    The Gaiety Theater in 1919, when it was a stand-alone building on Main Street in Ronan. (Photo by Fred Ecke)
  

    The Kenny James Miller Band performs at The Pearl Theater in Ronan, new home of the Western Montana Musicians Co-op. (WMMC photo)
  

    Members of the Western Montana Musicians Co-op jam on stage at The Pearl Theater in Ronan. (WMMC photo)