McPHERSON (AP) -- An effort to raise money for the $4.9 million restoration of the 111-year-old McPherson Opera House is off to a good start thanks to a trust gift from a man who grew up here, the honorary chairman of the fund-raising committee says.

Jim Ketcherside said raising the money is a challenge because a local hospital and two colleges are already conducting their own fund drives.

But a $100,000 trust gift from Dr. Fred McCoy and his wife, Mary, is ''an excellent beginning,'' Ketcherside said.

As a trust gift, the McCoys' donation will be transferred to the opera house after their estate is settled. It is the first endowment gift to the McPherson Opera House Preservation Company, which has raised an additional $224,000 for the restoration.

The opera house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, seats 900 people and was built in 1888 for $42,000.

The Richardsonian Romanesque house was one of the most modern buildings at the time because it had interior electric lights.

The opera house was converted into a movie theater in 1929, and parts of the building were later used for apartments until 1978.

A Trailways Bus Station was the last business to operate in the historic opera house, before the declining building was sold for $27,000 in back taxes in 1983.

Fred McCoy, who now lives in the Johnson County town of Mission Hills, left McPherson after graduating from high school in 1934. He remembered the opera house as a vacant, deteriorating building.

''We had a class reunion a year ago and they took our class on a tour through there,'' McCoy said. ''It was in pretty bad shape. My first impression was that it was impossible to salvage it. But my classmates assured me things were moving along very well. I think it will be a great project for the town.''

Crews have already begun working on the first phase of the reconstruction, a $1.4 million effort to remodel the attached building on the north side of the opera house and install restrooms and modern heating and plumbing. They will also restore commercial areas in the house.

The next major phase involves restoring the interior of the eight-story opera house.

Ketcherside said the opera house could become a center for McPherson arts programs, with a dance studio in the basement and a large ballroom area on one of the upper floors.

Opera and theater presentations could draw people from Saline, Reno, Harvey and Sedgwick counties, he said.

It is not yet know when the house will reopen, said preservation group's president, Irvin Greer.

''That all depends on our fund-raising efforts and how much our volunteers can do,'' Greer said. ''Some of these people have been with this project for 10 years. Their tenacity is just amazing.'' 

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