The Winter Jam Christian music tour, hosted by Newsong, will return to Santander Arena, Reading, on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m., with headliners We the Kingdom and Jeremy Camp and a lineup that includes Andy Mineo, Disciple, Austin French and Dove Award-winning new artist of the year Anne Wilson.
We The Kingdom will join Winter Jam following their fall tour and the release of their new eponymous album. The band received the awards for Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year for “Holy Water” at the 2021 GMA Dove Awards and is known for No. 1 songs like “Holy Water” and “God So Loved.”
Camp is a chart-topping, Grammy-nominated artist with 40 No. 1 hits. He is known for songs like “I Still Believe,” “Walk by Faith” and current hit “Keep Me in the Moment” and is the subject of the 2020 inspirational biopic “I Still Believe.”
Winter Jam’s pre-jam party will be led by Thrive Worship, Sean Be and RENEE. Pastor and author Zane Black will be the speaker.
No tickets are needed, and admission is $15 at the door. For more information, see jamtour.com.
Also coming to Santander Arena is the first-ever Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow Party for performances on May 20 and 21. Tickets are on sale at ticketmaster.com.
Favorite Hot Wheels Monster Trucks like Mega Wrex, Tiger Shark, Boneshaker and Bigfoot, plus the all-new Gunkster will light up the floor in monster truck competitions and battles.
The events will also feature a dance party, laser light shows and Hot Wheels toy giveaways, plus, a special appearance from the car-eating, fire-breathing transforming robot Megasaurus, and the high-flyers of Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live, Freestyle Motocross.
Reading Civic Theatre’s “The Full Monty” stars, first row from left, Bastian Gerena, Pete Bourey and Patrick Grinage, and back row from left, Randy Miller, James Barksdale and Jarrod Miller.
Theater
Reading Civic Theatre will present its final show of the 2022 season, “The Full Monty,” from Dec. 2-11 at its new location in the former Fox East Theater, Exeter Township.
“The Full Monty” tells the story of a group of unemployed steel workers from Buffalo who are figuring out how to cope with their situation. While spying on their wives at “Girls Night Out,” the men see how much they enjoy watching male strippers. Jealous, out of work and feeling emasculated, the men come up with a bold and unclothed way to make some quick cash.
In preparing, they find themselves extremely exposed; not merely physically but emotionally. As they conquer their fears, self-consciousness and prejudices, the men come to discover that they’re stronger as a group, and the strength that they find in each other gives them the individual courage to “let it go.”
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets may be purchased by going to readingcivic.org. Due to the mature subject matter, no one under 18 will be admitted.
Books
“She Looked to the Sky” is a biography about Reading aviator Frances Dean Wilcox Nolde.
Frances Dean Nolde has released the book “She Looked to the Sky,” a biography about her mother, Frances Dean Wilcox Nolde, a well-known Reading aviator of the 1940s and ’50s. The book is available on Amazon, and at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum at Reading Regional Airport; the Reading Regional Airport Authority gift store; General Carl A. Spaatz Museum, Boyertown; and the Berks History Center, Reading.
The author will give a reading and sign copies of the book at an open house at Nolde Forest Environmental Education Center, Cumru Township, on Dec. 4 from 1 to 4 p.m.
Frances Dean Wilcox Nolde dreamed of becoming an opera star and did perform in a Gershwin musical with Fred Astaire and became the star of a 1930s radio serial. But after she married a wealthy textile manufacturer and became the mother of seven children on his Pennsylvania estate, she looked to the sky, becoming a pioneer pilot, World War II Civil Air Patrol commander, winner of an early transcontinental all-women’s air race and eventually a colonel in the CAP in charge of the women’s program.
After moving to Washington, she became responsible for planning how America’s civilian airplanes would defend the country should the Cold War become hot.
A glamorous, ambitious proponent of women aviators, she challenged male dominance at a time when home, career, motherhood and personal success created both joy and trials in her life and the lives of those she loved. Her public life demonstrated her capabilities while her personal life revealed her flaws.
In “She Looked to the Sky,” her youngest child tells her mother’s story — and her own.
•••
“Highlights in the History of Reading, Pennsylvania,” a new book containing more than 30 true stories of people, places and events that shaped the city of Reading, is available on Amazon, masthof.com and at the Berks History Center, 940 Centre Ave.
The book covers everything from the city’s formation to colonies throughout the United States named after Reading to local celebrities and famous landmarks.
Edited by local author and former WEEU radio personality Charles J. Adams III and compiled by 13 researchers and writers for the Berks History Center’s quarterly journal, The Historical Review of Berks County, these stories and historical photos offer insight into the city’s familiar landmarks and fascinating men and women who left their mark on social, sporting, industrial, cultural and entertainment elements of life in Reading.
Topics include the Penn Street Covered Bridge, The Reading Army Air Field During WWII, The Park Theater, The Hessian Camp Indian Attack, Fastnachts and Peaches, When the Publisher of the Times Was an Eagle and Reading’s Only Black Powwower.
The book sells for $18.
