When Jared Potter was a teenager living in Yelm, his first job was at Yelm Cinemas nearly 20 years ago.
During his stint working at the theater, he fell in love with the world of cinema and with Yelm, simultaneously. He dreamed of one day producing a film that made it to the big screen in his backyard.
Potter’s dream is about to come true. The founder of Part One Media, a Yelm production company, is putting the finishing touches on the Yelm Centennial Documentary, scheduled to premiere at Yelm Cinemas on Monday, Dec. 9.
When he was approached by Line Roy, the City of Yelm’s communications and recreation coordinator, in October of 2023 about the project, Potter said it took him half a second to decide to pursue the documentary. After all, one of the biggest selling points was that it would be screened at the theater where he worked as a teenager.
“[Yelm Cinemas] influenced me in a lot of ways to go down the path that I went,” Potter said. “That full-circle moment of getting to screen a film about Yelm at the theater where I had my first job was very nostalgic and exciting for me. All of those elements combined was a no-brainer for me.”
Potter, who graduated from the University of Arizona in 2013 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in film production, worked closely with Roy and Yelm Mayor Joe DePinto to organize and conduct research, collect historical footage and shoot new footage around town. They first began in February to discuss the building blocks of the documentary.
Potter estimates that the film includes between 15 to 20 hours of interview footage with 15 people, transcribed into 240 pages of text. Interviewees include DePinto, former Yelm Mayor JW Foster, 507 Taproom owner and former Yelm police officer Bill DeVore and descendants of James Longmire, who is considered by many to be Yelm’s first citizen.
One of the most poignant interviews, however, was a four-hour sitdown with a man named Willis “Babe” Herness, who recently turned 102 years old and graduated from Yelm High School in 1940.
“In that very first meeting was when ‘Babe’s’ name came up, and I thought, ‘I have to interview him.’ He’s been in Yelm for longer than probably anyone living,” Potter said. “That was actually the very first task was, how do we find him? How do we get him in front of the camera?”
The film is about “a healthy 90% of the way there,” and Potter said he will likely take up until the day he has to submit the 45-minute to 60-minute documentary to the theater. While it has been widely marketed as a documentary, and in some respects it follows that theme, the film is more of a “love letter to the city of Yelm from the people that live here.”
“I think it does fall in the category of documentary because we’re talking to the people and hearing their real stories, but I’d say it’s less on the educational side,” Potter said. “It’s less about historical events and things that have happened. It’s become more of a snapshot of people’s memory of what this place was like and a personal sort of connection with that.”
Potter hopes the film links the past to the present by comparing what Yelm looked like then versus now. He wants to provide a nostalgic feeling to longtime residents, the same sentiment he feels every time he steps into Yelm Cinemas, which will host multiple sold-out screenings of the centennial documentary.
“I get a rush of good feelings every time I go there, even just to watch a film, but to get to go there with my family, my friends and all the people who I got to meet during this project and then to see this up on the big screen, it’s going to feel great,” he said. “It’s going to feel like a massive sense of accomplishment and pride for the town and what we were able to pull off together. It’s going to be a fun reunion of people who all share the same love for Yelm.
“I hope it makes people feel good and really takes them back,” Potter continued. “I hope it leaves people with a remembrance of why we love this place and why we want to continue to preserve it.”
Potter said the film will eventually be available online after it premieres at Yelm Cinemas.
