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jazz, and classical. He also has three styles and sizes of 25 different Japanese Taiko
drums, played by a group of athletic drummers who run marathons to maintain the
physical stamina required to play the giant drums. Even the theater's bathrooms are
amazing. The women's powder room has chandeliers, stained and jeweled glass,
and a ceiling reproduced from the 1890s Empire period. There are live-cut orch-
ids at every granite-and-onyx sink. The men's room, meanwhile, has sinks impor-
ted from Italy, black leather chairs, a marble fireplace, and a billiard room with a
hand-carved mahogany pool table. Ticket prices for Shoji's show are $22-$42 in
the summer. Shoji Tabuchi Show, 3260 Shepherd of the Hills Expressway, Branson,
MO 65615, 417-334-7469, www.shoji.com.
The 1,000-acre campus is surrounded on two sides by Lake Taneycomo. But its beautiful
setting and access to all those theater seats is not what makes it one of the most unusual
liberal arts colleges in the United States. It is unique among American colleges because all
1,450 students pay nary a penny for tuition. Instead, each student puts in 15 hours a week at
more than 80 locations around the campus.
The student body at the College of the Ozarks runs the FM radio station, the grain mill,
the fire department, the hospital, and all the other campus buildings. They're up at 5 a.m.
milking the herd of a hundred dairy cows, making the 30,000 fruitcakes that are given to
donors and sold in the gift shop every year, or minding the exotic orchids in the greenhouse.
The college has been around in one form or another since 1906. For many years, its
hotel-and-restaurant-management program ran a small lodge next to the dorms, as well as a
popular restaurant called the Friendship Inn. In 2004, the college upped the ante by putting
up the Keeter Center, a reproduction of the state of Maine's entry in the 1904 World's Fair in
St. Louis. The actual log building, bought by a group of St. Louis doctors and moved to Lake
Taneycomo by horse and buggy, served as a hunting and fishing lodge until it was sold to the
College of the Ozarks, where it was used for classes for many years. Although that original
lodge burned down, the College of the Ozarks was able to construct the Keeter Center to look
like that historic structure. All the rustic furniture is handcrafted, and every room is a suite,
complete with a fireplace, a balcony, feather pillows, and down comforters.
Suites at the Keeter Center begin at $159 for a skyline view suite, up to $269 for the
presidential suite.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
Keeter Center, College of the Ozarks, 1 Opportunity Avenue, Point Lookout, MO 65726,
417-239-1900, www.keetercenter.edu.
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