Dan A Suderman, Jr

Dan Suderman - A community says goodbye to a leader and advocate

Dan Suderman was the face of the Fox Theater as the Main Street building was coming back to life, but he was so much more than that.

"He was a person who cared deeply for others," said Deb Collier, a coworker from Suderman's days as a teacher in the Newton School District and one of his closest friends. "I wish we had more people in the world like Dan."

Suderman, 63, died March 12 at his home. A memorial service for the teacher, theater manager, fund-raiser for Youthville, softball team supporter and Vietnam veteran will be at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the theater.

"We lost a lifelong Newtonian who genuinely cared about this community," said co-worker and friend Roger Erickson. "He was an allaround great person."

Erickson got to know Suderman decades ago, first as a neighbor, then as the coach of Suderman's daughter, then as a co-coach for youth softball and years of working together at school and on community projects.

According to those who knew him best, Suderman spent his life serving people and trying to build up the Newton community.

"Dan would do anything for the kids he worked with," said assistant principal and former coworker Janice Whitfield. "He was more than a teacher; he was an advocate for them. The way he worked with students and helped them adjust to society and the workplace was amazing."

Suderman worked as a special education teacher, helping his students find jobs in the community and be successful in taking care of themselves.

He used one of his other loves - carpentry - to help his students.

"He built a lot of adaptive equipment for the special education department," Collier said. "He was ahead of his time in many things. He looked at improving the quality of life for his students."

The last few years Suderman had turned his eyes to a new project - breathing life into the Fox Theater, and in turn, downtown Newton.

The theater had sat empty, languishing, before Dan and his classmates purchased the building and started the long process of restoring it to it's 1950s heyday.

"He wanted to see downtown explode an thought the Fox would be part of that," said Mike White, who has been booking entertainment into the Fox since it reopened.

White said over the past few years, Suderman had developed a taste for nearly any kind of music - as long as it was good - and was willing to open the Fox for about anything.

"There weren't too many things that got turned down," White said.

"He gave everyone a good shot."

That, it seems, was part of his personality coming through.

"He didn't care about a résumé," Collier said. "He didn't care about status in the community. He saw a problem and worked on it. He had a wide group of friends and didn't know a stranger."

White said Suderman will always be a part of the theater, and Suderman's legacy will live on through the building he loved.

"If people didn't know him, I am sorry for that," White said. "You could meet him one time and know what kind of man he was. This is a loss for our community."