Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 01, 1994

"There's a new "karate kid" and this time it's a girl!"

That girl, 20-year-old movie star Hilary SWANK of Sherman Oaks, CA, was in Mount Ayr Monday noon and took time out of a five-day trip to Ringgold County to visit with a Mount Ayr Record-News reporter.

She was in the county to attend a CLOUGH family reunion, which included her grandfather, Kenny (sic) CLOUGH of Kellerton, and also visited with other relatives.

Hilary rode horses at HIGHTSHOE Quarter Horses and she plans on returning to Mount Ayr to pick out a horse to take back to California. She is an outdoors woman who counts skydiving, hiking, camping and horseback riding among her hobbies.

She also enjoyed visiting with the HIGHSHOES, Dave, Shirley (her aunt, the former Shirley SWANK) and Billy (her cousin), who are involved with HIGHTSHOE Quarter Horses family business enterprise. Her SWANK grandparents are Marion SWANK of Tingley, and the late Glen SWANK. She has another uncle, Kenny SWANK of Omaha, NE.

Her tie to the Mount Ayr and Kellerton communities is through the CLOUGH relatives, her mother is Judy (CLOUGH) SWANK of California, and her father, Steve SWANK of Washington state, formerly of Mount Ayr.

Hilary SWANK has been involved in television and movie roles for about four years now. When asked how you get into the business, she answers, "You get an agent and start auditioning." Her first part was in the television weekly show of several years ago, "Evening Shade".

What caused her to enter show business? She says, "I love to perform! At family gatherings I always have tried to be the center of attention!"

Some of the other shows in which she has appeared are: on television, "Growing Pains" and "Camp Wilder" and in the movie, "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer".

She trained five hours a day, learning karate, in preparation for her starring role with Pat Morita in "The Next Karate Kid" which took three months to produce. It will be released Sept. 9.

She found the role very challenging because of having to learn karate, and because she did all her own stunts. Some were vigorous enough to make her black and blue, such as when she was to get hit by a car and a fight scene with the bad guy at the end.

She also found it fun because Pat Morita made it so. "He is a very funny man. He has done stand-up comedy. Pat made me laugh all the time and this helped me relax and enjoy," Hilary says.

On the cover of a new novel written from the screenplay, one given to her aunt, Lorrayne SWANK of Kellerton, as an autographed copy, the information about the story says:

"Julie Pierce (Hilary) is just plain angry, angry at her teachers, her grandmother, even at her parents for dying.

"Now she's angry at her grandmother's friend, Mr. Miyagi (Morita). When Mr. Miyagi offers to teach her karate, she thinks it will be a great way to teach a lesson to the Alpha Elite, a group of students [who] have been hassling the other kids. But, Mr. Miyagi tells her that she must look for a way not to fight and that she must respect herself first because real strength comes from the heart.

"When the Alphas hurt Julie's new friend, Eric, she has to stop them. But, will the strength in Julie's heart be enough to overcome the Alphas?"

You'll have to see the movie to find out and be sure to look for Hilary.

Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 01, 1994

A correction needs to be made in an account of the Hilary SWANK interview about her starring role in the movie, "The Next Karate Kid". The article appeared in the Sept. 1 edition of the Mount Ayr Record-News.

A paragraph about her family should have read, "She (Hilary) was in the county to attend a CLOUGH family reunion, which included her grandparents - James "Jim" and Frances CLOUGH of Kellerton, and also visited with other relatives."

Transcriptions by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2012