We all should be proud of four residents who received awards for their longtime volunteer work with the Butler Little Theatre.

The American Association of Community Theatre presented its Spotlight Award to Gary and Sue Collar, Ron Lockwood and Marge Bankert.

All four recipients have been involved with community theater for 50 years or more and have served on the board and as actors, directors and producers as well as in almost every possible backstage assignment.

Combined, that’s more than two centuries of dedication to local drama, not for pay but for the sheer satisfaction of putting on a show.

Their achievement suggests an important story about our community — a story that lies somewhere backstage, away from the glare of the floodlights.

It’s a safe presumption that the arts suffer during times of financial uncertainty like the past decade or so. When soup lines and community dinners for the poor are a daily ritual, entertainment and culture obviously become a secondary concern. A not-so-safe assumption is that the arts are expendable during hard times. That’s simply not true.

Diversions like theater remain necessary, some would say especially during the most dire of times.

Without theater, music, art and other creative expressions, a struggling community stagnates and loses hope. It fails to attract new residents and businesses and their infusion of energy.

Without energy or hope, people go looking for other escapes from the tedium of day-to-day necessity. They turn to drugs, alcohol and other unhealthy forms of escape instead.

It becomes increasingly difficult during these periods not to avert our focus from the most fundamental of necessities — and lose the ability to stop and see beauty in any realm of existence.

It could be argued — it should be argued, energetically — that these four Butler Little Theatre volunteers have contributed every bit as much lifeblood into the community as any volunteer at Katie’s Kitchen or the Salvation Army.

There are signs that Butler’s doldrums may be lifting. Unemployment is falling to pre-Recession lows and gasoline prices have plunged below $2 a gallon — that’s as good as a pay raise for many.

An improving economy could translate into better days ahead for local arts and artists, including volunteer local theater. Let’s hope so.

Our thanks go to the Collars, Lockwood and Bankert. In addition to their awards, all four have been presented BLT life memberships. They also have earned this community’s respect and admiration for keeping the lights on and audiences entertained during some lean years..