Major: Tell me when you began to work with the symphony?
Middleton: Well, actually it was somewhere in the mid-70’s. There were three symphonies; there was a Peninsula Symphony; there was a Norfolk Symphony; and there was a Virginia Beach Pops, and I was on the Virginia Beach Pops board. And that was a community orchestra under Walter Noona, and there was talk of merger, of having one big symphony, and that was in 1979. So they selected three members from each of the three orchestras or groups to get together with the executive director of the Norfolk Symphony because the Peninsula and the Virginia Beach didn’t have staff. It was just volunteer people. And I was one of the people selected from our board to be on that steering committee, and there was a satellite office of WHRO at Military Circle, and we met there for months hammering out how we could pull this into one group because each group was fighting for their life and their part of this merger because Norfolk was larger and did have some paid musicians. And so they -- it was interesting; I found this with so many groups. One thing that we talked about more than anything else was the name … what we were going to call ourselves, and we came up with the Virginia Orchestra Group, and in the Virginia Orchestra Group was a classical component and a pops component, and we gave performances on the Peninsula and in Norfolk and at the Pavilion in Virginia Beach. That was the Pops, and the Pops was set up along the same format that we originally had had at the old Dome. The Virginia Beach group had where it was at tables, and they served wine and cheese which made for a lot of camaraderie in the group and the people. And so -- and all the boards became one board of this Virginia Orchestra Group. When we structured the leagues or the auxiliaries, which were the women’s groups, we made it a committee (like the subscription committee, you know, various committees) made it a committee, and the President of the entire group appointed me as the chair of the leagues, of all the auxiliaries. And under that we had a chairman for the Peninsula group and a chairman for the Norfolk group and a chairman for the Beach group so that we could keep some autonomy of our own groups. We all met together under me as the chair in an executive board group and as the larger group, so they as chairmen never had meetings that they chaired but they did have the officership and certain duties with their group and would host the various meetings. But I had the whole thing. Under that we had subscription. We sold out the Pops, which we were real proud of, and -- my husband made me buy subscriptions to all three series since I was subscription, even though he did not like to go. He loved the pops, but he was not into classical music but felt that we had to support
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the effort in that group. I was elected a vice president at that time of the group, too, so I served as vice president on the board and chairman of the league.
Major: Let me see if I understand this structure. At the time of the lead up to the merger and the beginning of the merger, you were on the symphony board; you were also on the steering committee, and you also chaired the efforts to work with the three symphony leagues and bring them together.
Middleton: Right. Busy. It was a full time job, it really was. In fact, I told Susan, if had still been at the house -- if this had been five years ago -- I had at least two file drawers full of information and things, and I kept a daily log book of how often I was on the telephone, how often I had to do communications, meetings I went to. I had one separate book for just the symphony stuff that I did.
Major: What were the main responsibilities, as it turned out? How did you spend your time when you were doing all of those things that were going to lead to the merger?
Middleton: Putting out fires and soothing ruffled feathers because this was new to everyone, and everyone wanted to be part of the group, but still there were some that were hanging onto the old and didn’t want this change. The main leaders did, but a lot of the ladies in the auxiliary, you know, this was not, they didn’t want to come across the river
Major: (Agrees)
Middleton: Here; and there was a brick wall between Virginia Beach and Norfolk back from the old days of merger bit with the city, and so it was mainly not only trying to move it forward on the subscriptions and do the boutique and get the office workers to stuffing envelopes and getting the work done. It was more trying to bring everybody together was more my responsibility than anything else. And people would call me with this one was upset or that one, and then I would have to go put out that little fire or smooth those ruffled feathers, and try to -- so I saw my role more that way, and the president did, too, and that’s why he sort of put me there, I guess. I guess he felt that he could not, in that role, have someone from Norfolk because then the two smaller groups would have felt lost, so he needed someone from the Peninsula and someone from me, and he had worked with me in the – and even though we have men in the league, it still is predominantly a women’s group.
Major: (Agrees)
Middleton: And so therefore it needed to be a female, and he had worked with me on the steering committee and evidently couldn’t find anyone better (laughter) so that was my job. Now Minette followed me as president. I was president of the league for two years. She followed me, and at that time it had been two years.
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She was able to restructure and bring it all into more cohesive as one, instead of having the smaller groups.
Major: At that time what responsibilities were the leagues responsible for? I know that, since there was very little staff, you must have done a great deal that we now take for granted was done by the staff.
Middleton: Right. That is membership for the league, ways and means, we did a marathon, a radio marathon with Vianne Webb to raise money; we had a catalog of items. We did the boutique, which they still have and any and all other fundraising ideas. We did the subscription drive for all the concerts for the three venues. We did the hospitality. Artists were picked up at airport, shown around the community, entertained, even housed. We supplied refreshments and buffet meals for functions and for the working musicians. Then there was the office: for supplying the volunteers to do things there, and I’m sure Minette told you about the time that several of us ran the office when we didn’t have an executive director.
Major: No No
Middleton: I’ll tell you about that then. The marathons, the boutique, concert hospitality, ushered and distributed programs at the things, newsletter, education – see, the league did all the education work whereas now there is staff-handles that.
Major: (Agrees)
Middleton: Programs for league meetings, arrangement for the meetings, and a telephone backup communication, and ‘Candle-glow,’ which is social events after the concerts.
Major: Hum
Middleton: So that’s
Major: There are a number of those things that have been taken over by regular paid staff.
Middleton: (Agrees)
Major: But I had wondered at what point the subscription campaign, for example, passed from being a league activity to being a staff activity. So in the late 70’s early 80’s, it was still a league activity?
Middleton: Oh, yeah, very much, very much.
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Major: That’s interesting. And education too.
Middleton: Right, right.
Major: Those are two major things.
Middleton: Major things.
Major: That are now done now by staff.
Middleton: And when I would do my report to the board from the league, not only would I have visuals, but the majority of that board (and most boards ___ ) are businessmen, so I always put it into dollars and cents. I transposed our hours into minimum wage and reported to them how valuable the league, because some of those men just thought they were ladies that got together and sat around and drank tea and talked about the symphony. You know.
Major: Or folded mailings.
Middleton: Right, right, right. And I had to try to convey to them the strength and the value of the league.
Major: What are some the major things you think made the merger successful?
Middleton: Vision by some of the leaders of -- I mean, it was one of the first major regional things that took place. That, I mean, we have Greater Hampton Roads now and Future of Hampton Roads, and all these organizations and things that are going on at this time. We’re still fighting it, but we have moved so far. But this was the arts, and the symphony was one of the first mergers throughout the region that even took in the Peninsula . And it was just the vision of some of the people and the attitude of them that drove it forward, and I think the timing was right. We then were able to grow because of the strength, because of the numbers, because of the attitude and were able to get better musicians, better pay, and better leaders and conductors.
Major: (Agrees)
Middleton: Than we had.
Major: I do want to come back to the matter of conductors. Let me ask, in looking over the papers that the library has been given, I have discovered that there was a somewhat serious investigation of a merger with the Richmond Symphony in the late ‘80s. What can you tell us about that?
Middleton: Not a lot because, like I said, I went off the board in ’84 and because I had been so involved those five years with the symphony, and people saw me
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that way, and then I went on Arts and Humanities; I had to almost divorce myself from their activities even though I was still a lifetime member of the league and could attend league meetings and things but tried to stay separate. And I eventually chaired Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission, in fact I was on there eight years. No, I was on there ten years, ten years. You were supposed to be on eight. I took on an appointment of someone who went off so I could stay on for ten. And so I really didn’t keep up except through hearing things from friends who were still on the board, so I really can’t help you with that.
Major: I can appreciate how important your role in leadership was. Did you have any specialty in the board’s work or the league’s work? Beyond just making sure that this organization succeeded.
Middleton: (Sigh) Well, on the board I was a vice president; I was secretary; I did all the subscriptions for the three venues; I was a vice chairman of fundraising. I ran -- you know, we used to do our own phonathons, and I did them for subscription, and I did them for fundraising, and I had to organize those and get the people there and do that as well, and go sit and call. (Laughter) So you know, just as any board member does, I was – had…many caps to try to keep it going.
Major: Yeah. And some boards that I have sat on, I have somehow ended up as the financial person, and so that became my specialty.
Middleton: Oh.
Major: And so I wondered, and there were often people who had their own specialties on the board.
Middleton: Well, Pat Deans was the treasurer the whole time I was on the board.
Major: Really. Grace Deans’ husband?
Middleton: Um hum, um hum.
Major: Thank you. From your present vantage point, how strong do you think the symphony has been in the last ten years?
Middleton: Oh, it has just gone from strength to strength from my viewpoint, pretty much now as an outsider. I know they still had financial problems with the cuts, and when it is not a good economic time, people hold on to their donations a little bit tighter, and when companies are stressed, they don’t give as much, and, of course, we know government has just about disappeared in its help. So they have had those problems but they still didn’t have the problems that we had back then. I will go back and tell you the story about how we ran the office. We
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had so many emergency executive committee meetings, which I was always on the executive committee because I was always an officer. At one time, and I can’t even remember the guy’s name -- Frank, Francis? Anyway when we first started, he was executive director, and he was one of the kinds that was very creative but without the business background. They seem to swing with executive directors from either being very artistic and creative, or they do have some business sense. And you see we have one this way, and they would go for one this way and then get tired of that, and they go back the other way. We went in -- we were meeting every morning at like 8 o’clock.
Major: Every morning.
Middleton: The executive committee off and on for about a week, we went in one day, and we were $50,000 in the black, and we went in the next day. And we were like $50,000 in the red, and this was when we didn’t have a huge big budget! We fired him, and we didn’t have an executive director, and John Hodgson, Minette Cooper, Pat Roebuck and myself ran that office. I would go in one day -- we took -- we rotated for the week. We spent more time leaving notes for the person that was coming in the next day of what had transpired than anything else of what we did, so when we came in, we could pick up and see what happened because there were three or four staff members at the time. I think three. And we went in and just were making decisions, sitting there by ourselves making the decisions to keep this organization running till we could interview and hire an executive director.
Major: What do you think has contributed to the strength upon strength, or did you say success upon success?
Middleton: In my opinion the greatest asset of the symphony right now is the musicians and especially the conductor. I think JoAnn Falletta has been the shoulders upon which this symphony has risen.
Major: (Agrees) What do you think needs to happen additionally to continue this kind of growth?
Middleton: Money. Foundation. It’s got to have some basic economic base.
Major: Are you referring to the VSO Foundation?
Middleton: (Agrees)
Major: Tell me more about that.
Middleton: That’s something that we talked about and talked about and couldn’t seem to get started. We brought in experts, so to speak, to talk to us because we recognized even back then in the beginning that it was something that we
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needed. And they were just … they were moving closer and closer to it when I went off the board, but we knew it needed to happen, and we tried to get help, but when you are begging for money to operate on, it’s hard to know how to tap that source or another source to get money to start a foundation.
Major: (Agrees)
Middleton: And that’s where we were. Evidently they did get it started, but I have no idea the strength of it at this time, what is…
Major: I know that it exists, and I know it gets a certain amount – well, there is a Legacy Society, so we know that it gets some estate gifts.
Middleton: Yeah. Yeah.
Major: And I’m not so sure, I don’t really know about other gifts that it gets, but I do know that there is growth.
Middleton: Right.
Major: So. All together there has been women’s committee, women’s auxiliary, now the symphony league since the very early days of this symphony. Do you have a sense over time of what these groups have contributed to the viability of the symphony?
Middleton: I think they’re what has kept it alive, and I’ll tell you why. As you see, when I got involved, what they did without staff; it was all volunteer, and it was through the league. The other thing is, it’s a spread of numbers. Your board only consists of so many people and needs to only exist of so many people so the work gets done at that level. But this grass roots that just spreads through the league -- they can be -- the league can have a 100 members, or it can have 10,000 members, and so therefore it has spread out. It’s like in fundraising; my viewpoint is, when I am fundraising, yes, I am thrilled to death if you give me a $1,000 because my numbers have jumped, but you are one person that has bought into the belief of the support. But if I get ten people to give me ten dollars, it’s harder to get and it’s more on my effort, but then I have ten people that have invested in this group, so therefore the league has spread its tentacles so far and has people that have a committed support. And I think therefore that idea appeals to me. That there is a strength.
Major: (Agrees) What’s your sense about how effective the league is at this time with their fundraising, because I know fundraising remains a major component.
Middleton: The league, with its car raffle and boutique and I don’t know of any other fundraisers that they do at this time, I think is doing a major job. The car raffle seems to bring in a lot of money. What the league gives – what, $70,000 or $80,000 a year?
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Major: That’s about the figure that we have been hearing.
Middleton: To the symphony board, which is quite substantial, in my opinion, not maybe to the overall budget, but it’s a lot of money. I would like to see that amount increase, and I don’t know, but I feel that they need to be invigorated a little bit more than they are at the point. I think they have worked so hard for so long to get to that, and now the past few years that has sort has been their goal, and they have never gotten it up. And I think you always have to look for increases in that because the budget keeps increasing, but the league doesn’t keep increasing their component part of it. And I -- don’t ask me for any bright ideas. (Laughter) But there are young, interested, and vital people in there that surely could be challenged.
Major: Are there a lot of young people? Since this project began, the current library director, Ginny O’Herron, and I both joined the league, and we will go to the lunches. I don’t go to anything else, but when I look around, I see a great many people of my age and older.
Middleton: (Agrees) That’s true. I can’t really answer that because that’s my involvement at this point. I don’t attend the previews. I just go to the luncheons if they fit my schedule, and there are only three of those, and so I might get to one, maybe two a year…
Major: That’s right.
Middleton: And they are, you are right, it’s an elderly group. Now I don’t know if that’s saying there are not younger people, but they can’t get to the luncheons because they are working, or they are involved, or if that’s saying that the membership is not actively recruiting younger people.
Major: Besides your work with the board and the league, did you ever have any involvement with the youth orchestra?
Middleton: No. Except to usher sometimes and help that way, but I never had any involvement with them.
Major: How about the community music school?
Middleton: No.
Major: Same.
Middleton: (Agrees)
Major: And the chorus?
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Middleton: No, because that came along after my time. I only know about the chorus through Minette (laughter) and Pat Rublett (ph).
Major: Minette was a --- the chorus was organized by Don McCullough in 1989, right?
Middleton: I think so.
Major: Can you describe the various kinds of contracts that are used to recruit musicians? Because I know that there is more than one kind of contract.
Middleton: No, I really can’t. I just know back in our time, we did a -- I know the auditions were like blind auditions. I know that we had a lot of trouble, and this was right about the time I was leaving, and it transpired after I left the board. The opera used to contract individually with musicians, and we so wanted our musicians -- the opera to contract with the symphony for musicians. I understand that is the way it is now.
Major: It is, but --
Middleton: But before, it was -- and sometimes that would almost be conflicts even as much as we tried not to schedule, because
Major: (Agrees) So that joint contract happened after your time on the board?
Middleton: Right. But it was something we were trying to work toward at that time.
Major: And I know it was after you left the board when they achieved a full time salaried orchestra for the first time.
Middleton: Right.
Major: Because that happened in 1985. But you could certainly see the progress –
Middleton: See it coming, right.
Major: Tell us a little bit about how it happened or what the ingredients were that made it possible.
Middleton: Well at that time Jerry Haynie was our executive director, and Jerry was more of a businessman bit after Francis had left, and he could see that need in there and many of the board members too, but I think it was -- we have to give a lot of credit to Jerry in working that out. He did play an instrument, so he had music background, as well, and he could relate, I think, to the musicians maybe better than some and made friends with them, and he was on board for a while as executive director, and I think having the continuity of him there helped with
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that and the board. And many of the board members, I think -- at that time we knew the musicians. I don’t know if they do now or not. I mean that is an unknown to me, but we gave each year a party for the musicians. Many times it was at Sunny Williams house on Jamestown Crescent , and so the board was there, meeting the musicians, talking to them. We served -- the league served refreshments for them after rehearsals at times, and we got to know them. In fact, the last luncheon -- that’s the reason I went there. If you saw I walked in, and John Lindberg’s talking about Skitch Henderson because he had just died recently. They had a party at our house for him on his birthday, and then I was talking to our speakers. It’s just that’s what drew me back; they were friends of mine, and so there was a feeling there, and it was something that we were desperate to work towards. We also knew, not only did they need the salary and the stability, but the symphony had to have it to survive. We had to have it.
Major: Had to have?
Middleton: Money, salary, uh-huh full time.
Major: And you had to have the obligation
Middleton: We had to have that core group, and that’s what we started with was a core contract was our aim, and then with add-ons until we could get it grown.
Major: When that happened, did those orchestra positions become more competitive?
Middleton: No because I could still think the same -- the people who were pretty much the core, many of them are still here, and I think that is what kept them here, and I think the growth has come through their musicianship. They have grown, and I think each -- now I can’t say this with any factuality, but it is my belief that each conductor has helped take the symphony to a different level. I think it has stretched the musicians because each conductor has a different approach to music. And I think whether they got stretched this way or that way or what, it made them grow. And I think when they got JoAnn here that it has just given them the confidence to just explore and just grow.
Major: One of the things that appeared to happen during the decade between ’70 to ’80 was a joint partnership of some kind with Norfolk State to recruit people to be on the faculty at Norfolk State and sometimes also to be symphony musicians, and that is how Steve Carlson came, and I believe that’s how Gerry Errante came, although I understand he didn’t play with the symphony for too long, and I am not sure who else, but do you know much about how that partnership developed?
Middleton: No I really don’t. I know … well if I remember correctly, John Lindberg was even on the faculty at William and Mary, so they taught at that time at various colleges and things, as well as with private students and everything to make a living.
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Major: And still do.
Middleton: Yes have to.
Major: Right. There in the records from times past, there has always been a lot of discussion. Particularly in one time period, there was a lot of discussion about thinking up special ensembles or special performance opportunities or whatever to fill out the employment potential to make it closer to a full time job. And I wonder if you remembered that line of discussion in your time on the board?
Middleton: No, I really don’t. I know they played in the Feldman , but I don’t remember any discussion of maybe them coming under our umbrella. They were always a separate entity, and I don’t remember any discussion at all of -- I do remember discussion of other activities, other jobs for them, what they could do in that way.
Major: That’s what I meant.
Middleton: But it never got beyond talk in that way.
Major: Really, ok.
Middleton: And I think, in my opinion, it was a secondary talk because it was more an emergency; we have got this problem now of these people can’t make a living. What we need is a full time professional symphony, but until we can get there --cause we could see this is only going to be done in steps -- then what do we do? How can we help them in other ways? Now that is my remembrance of those talks. It was not the focal -- it was a stop gap measure until we could take care of them.
Major: Ok. Who was the first conductor that you remember prominently? Who was the first one who conducted when you started going to the symphony?
Middleton: It was Russell Stanger.
Major: Can you talk about the Russell Stanger period?
Middleton: Russell Stanger was the conductor of the Norfolk Symphony and therefore stayed on, was the conductor when we put all of it together. Russell was a delight and had a resume outside of Norfolk , as well, but I don’t think had the respect of the community or the musicians, maybe, that he should have had. I think it was the prophet in his own country syndrome, and I think people didn’t recognize that Russell had conducted elsewhere and was the guest conductor and was -- didn’t recognize his level, and I think that held back the symphony in a
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way. I think Russell was very well liked in the community, but I don’t think he had the respect he should have had.
Major: He was sort of underestimated
Middleton: Uh huh, uh huh, and therefore it took an outsider to come in for people to view them as, oh they came from so and so; they’ve got to be good.
Major: (Agrees) How did the Russell Stanger period end?
Middleton: Better than it should have because Russell was a gentleman ... If you remember, we got rid of Walter Noona, and that was a horrible time. I have -- I was getting ready to say, I think I have two friends, one of which to this day does not speak to me, because I had come from Virginia Beach and had gone into this new group, and I happened to be one of the few people, that after a board member was called into the room with a group of musicians that came to the board complaining about Walter, his lack of musicianship, his lack of professionalism, and that they didn’t want to play under him anymore. And you can imagine the phone calls and all of this was going on through this, and I was not there, but they talked to Walter, and we knew a big schism was coming. And it hit -- the VOG became the vultures of Ghent , quote, you know, Walter Noona’s quote. And it was a big ugly situation that blew up. I was secretary of the board at the time, and Clay Barr was chairman, and it was a very emotional time, a very bitter time. And we had to make a decision of how we were going to vote, and there a certain group of people that felt we were with Walter when he came to this group. We live at the Beach. We are on this board, but we are going to support Walter. And they did, and they resigned from the board, and I stayed on the board because I voted a different way. Now Walter and Carol were friends. I still see them out and about; we’ve never have had any words. How he actually feels, I don’t know, but he does speak, and he is polite, and we chat. I try to view it from the board’s viewpoint of what was -- of looking at it from the organizational viewpoint. Maybe those other people did the same thing and voted differently. I don’t believe it, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. But it caused a lot of major problems, and it was a big blow up. Now when we decided to let Russell go and look for a different conductor, it was handled differently, and he, as I said, was a gentleman. And there, I think there was some maybe hurt feelings, but there was certainly no commotion. It was just time to move on and take it to a different level.
Major: Time to move on.
Middleton: (Agrees) To another conductor.
Major: The next two fellows were both short timers - Winston Dan Vogel and Richard Williams. Why was that?
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Middleton: I don’t know. Winston Dan Vogel I never knew. Richard Williams - my husband and I were asked to take him to dinner and to a play at Wells Theatre; We saw On Golden Pond. And I will never forget that night because we came home and went to bed, and I got up the next morning to cook breakfast, and I looked, and my silver service had been stolen. We had been robbed that night!
Major: Oh my gosh!
Middleton: And Bev’s guns, antique guns. But anyway, that’s another story. But that’s why that is so vivid in my mind. So I don’t really know because I was not on the board at that time. I think -- I have an opinion -- I think the board was searching for another level of conductor, but many factors entered in. They couldn’t get what they wanted because of salary, because of level of musicianship in the symphony, and yet they were looking for someone to lift them up to grow. And it just -- it wasn’t working. Now that’s my opinion; whether that’s true or not, I have no idea.
Major: One of the themes that I picked up in reading material from the period of both of these, well even from the Edgar Schenkman period clear up until 1990, I would say, is the expectation in this community that the conductor would live locally, and this would be his primary responsibility, primary professional association. Can you give me a sense of how that expectation developed, and how it was maintained and ?
Middleton: Because that’s the way it had always been.
Major: Oh, I see.
Middleton: The conductor had been, if not local, you know a local boy, so to speak -- I mean, this was part of what I was saying with Russell Stanger, that he was here; he was part of the community, so the board at that time was looking to the same thing that’s always has been. You get a conductor; he moves here; this is his job. Not only does he conduct and do that job, but he is the front man for the symphony, and he can’t be that unless he is here. He has to be here at the fundraisers, and he has to be here for this and that, and he has to be the symphony. So you wrap him in a package, and so if it has been that way, that’s the way its supposed to be until someone finally got out in the world and said, it doesn’t work that way in Boston, and it doesn’t work that way in Cleveland, or it doesn’t work that way somewhere else, and so maybe we could try something different.
Major: So you think that what made it change, was that some of the leadership learned that this was not the normal way.
Middleton: You know, we are not on a pathway. We are not on 85, or we are not on 91. We’re isolated. We are over in our little corner here, and it makes a
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difference, and we are Southerners. So if it has been that way, it’s supposed to be that way. It’s tradition.
Major: Well, that’s true.
Middleton: But I think as it grows, and as we join some of the national organizations, and as they started getting magazines, and as they started seeing outside the world, and as maybe someone went to a convention or maybe someone started talking to someone else. I can remember -- I have lost his name – anyway, the guy that had been president of Royster; they had a private plane and …
Major: Oh, his name is Royster
Middleton: Jim Royster. I have trouble with names these days. The company had a private plane, and there were four of us that flew to Boston to tour the hall and talk with the executive director and some staff up there, of how the pops was such a component of the Boston Symphony. In fact, I think the Boston Pops probably is better known than the Boston Symphony -- and to see how they worked and some of that structure, to talk with them about that and came back. I will never forget; it was about two days after the plane had skidded off the runway up there in the ice; and we are flying up in a small plane upward. I don’t want to do this. Though we finally decided that it would be all right; the pilot would not go if it weren’t. But we started looking beyond ourselves as to how other people did things; and I think eventually new ideas took hold.
Major: From your time on the symphony board and symphony league forward, you have done a lot of community service. What can you observe about the contributions of women who make significant community service commitments?
Middleton: In what way? Whether I …
Major: Well, I know women around town who have maybe four or five different community service areas that they have put twenty-five years into. Women who were never career women but this was their career, and they’ve been very effective because they have been in the middle of some very significant things.
Middleton: Yes. Minette Cooper. Clay Barr. Winnie Maddock, just to name a few. Of course that’s their symphony, but Minette certainly is beyond symphony, on bank boards, she was -- I don’t know what the title is, chairman or something -- of her Synagogue, her group, and she is now president of Cultural Alliance. I just had a meeting Monday; I am on that board. And yet Minette has a secretary; I mean, volunteerism is her full time job, and she’s just involved all over the state.
Major: I discovered that she had a secretary during the time when I chaired the search committee for the chorus master, and we recruited Bob Shoup. Minette was on that
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committee, and that was when I encountered her secretary. So... Are there things that you thought we might be interested in that have not come up? Are there things that you wanted to bring out that have not come up?
Middleton: Well, the one thing that is fun to talk about is -- I will show this. I was on Arts and Humanities … cause this I was really proud of; there is no date on it.
Major: Oh, lovely.
Middleton: Isn’t that clever?
Major: Yes.
Middleton: They presented me that when I was leaving the board.
Major: Oh, that was lovely.
Middleton: I couldn’t even hardly thank them. I am very proud of that. Skitch Henderson’s 70th birthday party was at our house; we had about 300 people there.
Major: 300 people! …
Middleton: There is -- they taped it when they sang Happy Birthday to him, and its on all the TV stations. Now I have got a copy of it. But -- you would have better quality to see if the TV station has it. Andy Roberts sang Happy Birthday to him; remember the weather man? Ok… That’s Andy used to be on the local TV, but he had been a singer and sung for Skitch.
Major: For heavens sake.
Middleton: So that’s how he came to the house, and we had a big tent set up outside in front of the dog house. It’s the garage and my son, who is a hog farmer. The cake had been a piano, and why I have so few pictures in here is because the symphony had people there taking pictures. They had a photographer, and she was taking some in black and white for publication and most in color. And I thought --and of course, you can imagine, I’ve got all these people coming to my house; I am busy, and I’m running around, and they’re there setting up, and we had -- my husband went out and got bales of straw to put out because we did the barbeque. Barry came with the cooker, and he killed a couple of hogs. They got up at 5 o’clock in the morning, and they cooked them all day long so they were ready for that evening. We had the fans with Skitch’s face on it that we all held up to us because it was surprise for him, and he arrived. But people were bringing in food from this place cause we tried to get -- will you give us this? will us give us that? You know, we are begging all over the place to get freebies as much as we can. So people are delivering, and the
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flowers are coming, and they are decorating the mailbox, and so they are running around taking all these pictures, and they were going to give me a set. I have never to this day… and every time I … At first I asked; we will get them to you, or they are not developed yet, or we have not finished with them. And then it was Harriet who had been the liaison, Harriet Irving, left the symphony, and then nobody knew anything about it, and we have never found them. So see if they turn up.
Major: Let’s keep an eye out for them.
Middleton: Because there should be stacks of pictures from that party from his 70th birthday party.
Major: OK.
Middleton: Because John Lindberg said he still had his fan that we all hid behind.
Major: I think we are ready to turn it off.
END OF INTERVIEW
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