Q. What is your official title?

Professor of Voice/Vocal Area Coordinator

Q. When did you begin working at ENMU?

1984

Q. When is your last day at ENMU?

My first official day of retirement is July 1, although I am teaching a summer class that goes until the end of July.

Q. What have been the main duties of your job?

Official duties included: teaching voice lesson, Vocal Pedagogy, Survey of Music Theatre, and Stagecraft for Singers (language diction and vocal literature in the past) directing/co-directing operas and musicals. I also advise a number of students and serve on committees. Unofficial duties include: accompanying students (vocal and instrumental) for auditions, recitals and studio classes.

Q. What have you enjoyed most about your job, and what have been the biggest challenges?

I have most enjoyed working with the students, and watching them progress. Since we are an undergraduate-only program, we can devote more time to the undergraduates and give them opportunities that they would not have at larger schools, where they would have to compete with graduate students for opera roles and solos. I am proud of the fact that this has meant our undergraduate students have competed in large competitions with graduate students and have won! (Vocal Artistry Art Song Competition, Dallas Opera Competition, etc.).

They have also received admission into top graduate programs. This year my two seniors who are going to graduate school have their choices of going to NYU’s Steinhardt School of Music, the Boston Conservatory, and Oklahoma City University. In addition, I have enjoyed making music with my colleagues and, believe it or not, I also have enjoyed working on committees with people from across the campus!

The biggest challenges have been: 1) working with students who come with widely varying levels of preparation, and making sure that we get them really ready for graduate school and/or teaching; 2) advocating for music inclusion in education, both at ENMU and in the public schools; and 3) staying positive, especially when people who don’t understand what we do run down music degrees.

Q. Who are some of the people and experiences at ENMU that stand out the most?

Some of the fondest memories I have outside of teaching involve the gourmet groups that we used to have through ENMU Women. A group of about 12 people would get together once a month to eat good food and socialize. Through that group I got to know Jack Williamson, and Dale and Mozelle Hamlett, and so many other wonderful faculty that I did not see on campus because we were in different buildings.

The people that stand out the most are my students, some of whom were told that they “didn’t have what it takes” to be performers, and who refused to take no for an answer. One in particular was a student who studied with me when I first got here named Gina Watson. Despite a faculty member telling her she needed to change majors, she persevered and graduated with her vocal performance degree, went to study with my former teacher for graduate school, and ended up singing in Europe for some years before returning to the United States, where she continues to sing professionally.

Q. What were you doing before you came to ENMU, and what other jobs have you held?

Before I came to ENMU I was singing professionally, and completing my doctorate at Florida State University, where I worked in the department budget office, and in the instrument storage room. In additional to singing and teaching jobs, I have worked in a restaurant as bus girl, until promoted to salad girl, where I worked in the kitchen with a chef who loved to sing opera with me (we even got tips!). I also worked as a government inspector of clean room packaging facilities (where they processed military and medical instrumentation), and as a costume assistant and sometime choreographer for several regional theatres.

Q. What are your degrees and majors, and what activities did you participate in during college?

I have a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where I participated in musicals and helped plan music for a radio theatre show on WOBC, the student-run radio station. My Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance is from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and my Doctor of Music degree in Vocal Performance is from Florida State University.

To be honest, the life of a music major is tremendously busy, with opera rehearsals every night, and other rehearsals and practicing (3-4 hours a day) every day, so I really did not have time to participate in much else.

Q. Where were you born, raised, and what was your life like growing up?

I was born in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where both of my parents worked at Holloman Air Force base. We moved to Pennsylvanie for two years, and then to Berea, Ohio, where I graduated from high school. I started piano lessons at age 4 ½, dance lessons at 6, and violin lessons at 9.

My parents were not particularly well-off (raising five children is expensive), so we never had a television until I was a senior in high school, but they always found a way to provide for the music and dance lessons for me. When I was 11 I started classes at the summer theatre in my town, and by the time I graduated from high school, had three years as a paid apprentice in the costume shop under my belt. All my siblings participated in band in school and took piano lessons, but I was the only one to go on in music. My mother and father both sang in the Bach Festival at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea. They were both from musical families – my father’s mother was a professional pianist, piano teacher and composer, and my mother’s sister is a very well-known pianist, piano teacher and accompanist in Portland, Oregon.

Q. What are your hobbies?

Quilting. Anything with power tools. Gardening. Animals. Camping. And speed. I used to race a jet boat. . .

Q. Besides work, what gives your life meaning?

People. I love people, and I love to meet new people and learn their stories. That is why I love to travel. And animals of all kinds (except snakes and spiders).

Q. What is your general impression of Portales, and ENMU?

Great place to live with wonderful, friendly, helpful people. ENMU has been a great place to work.

Q. What will you be doing after you retire from ENMU?

I will be serving as head of the music department and teaching voice at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. And quilting.

Q. Other thoughts?

Coffee is essential to life. Animals are essential to life. People are really good, even if their visible signs are not so nice.