The Best Fifty Cents

My mother was a farm girl. One Saturday she took me down the road to Gower Missouri, gave me two quarters and said, Go to Maude Guinn’s house and take a piano lesson.  So I did.

This September,  I told this story at the Alumni gathering at Benton High School in St. Joseph Missouri. We were there to honor three fine arts teachers who began their teaching careers in 1969.  I began my talk with, "It was the best 50 cents she ever spent." Everyone laughed. But that 50 cents took me a long, long way. 

Students from the 1971 Benton Singers with David L. Farris (Center)

After Maude Guinn's piano lessons, I joined my high school choir. It was 1971. Our young director, Dave Farris had a vision. He told 19 of us kids, ages 14 to 17, we could become the “Benton Singers.” Not only that, but we could convince our community to back us in raising enough funds to take a European Concert tour. We were kids. We believed him. What did we know? 

That fifty cents became hundreds then thousands of support. We worked 10 months, day and night: performed at six am Kiwanis sausage and biscuit breakfast (and we got no biscuits); left school with our homework on the teachers’ desks to catch a bus and perform in the middle of the day; passed the hat at over 75 concerts that year. Most of our parents were working people who knew this was the chance of a lifetime, and could never afford the ticket on their own. But somehow arts teachers, the other teacher sponsors, and the community at large, pulled together and believed in us. People like John Hoffman, John Reese, and our principal. Community members like the grocery store owner Paul Kovac, the Ford Dealer, the local banker, and the Chamber of Commerce. Somehow these “arts people” got us the gig. Nineteen kids with nothing but talent, sheer determination, and a fabulous teacher leader did that. We got on an airplane and my 'fifty cents' flew right over the ocean.  

Benton Singers in Italy 1971

We sang all over Europe. We did official concerts: Zurich, a town hall in the UK, Rammstein Airbase Hospital. Even more memorable, we did spontaneous concerts, like the one in Florence at the church called Santa Maria Del Fiore. What I remember best about this church was that it held the dome designed by Brunelleschi.  Now I know it as the place where the Renaissance began. The place where someone said, we have lost the key to Western Civilization. We do not know how to build this. We do not know how the arts can make a way, or what the arts can do. And crazy eyed Brunelleschi stepped in and said, I will do it. 

He did what everyone said could not be done.

To me, my  mother's fifty cents became like Brunelleschi's 'I will do it.'  It became a renaissance in my own life. On that day in Italy, under Brunelleschi's Il Duomo we sang for mass. Our director picked up his hand and conducted. There in the beautiful cathedral, our prepared piece from one of the dozens we learned by heart, transformed into a thing of impossible beauty. We counted 13 seconds for the last chord to die away. In that after note of silence we were awe struck. When it was over, a little Italian lady came over and patted the hand of one of the girls and said, “Grazie, grazie, grazie.”  That's when I knew. I knew that the arts had changed us, students from a small school on the wrong side of a down-and-out town, the arts had taken us farther than we ever imagined.

The teachers we honored last month, that's what they did for us. They handed us their fifty cents; gave us what little they had and sent us out into the world to share it. That small change multiplied. Our dear director, David L Farris, only taught at Benton for four years-- over 40 years ago, but the lives of so many students were altered forever. Forty years later, we gathered to eat a chicken dinner, give him a plaque, and sing his praises. Why does that matter? Think of the impact. Nineteen of the Benton singers went out into the world and influenced other lives and communities; worked in a wide variety of careers and fine arts. Some went into the arts.  One received the first college degree in her family and received a Doctoral Degree in Music Education. One taught for many years, more music springing out of more instrumentalists and vocalists. But what  REALLY matters from the work of those honored that night are the dozens and hundreds who are teachers, policemen, doctors, social workers, military members, federal workers, business people, nurses, family builders, pastors They are the people who make our community. And we are the richer for it. We became what we are because we learned those lessons in the arts.

(L to R John Hoffman, Theater Arts; John Reese, Band; David L Farris, Vocal Music

My path started on just fifty cents. Now after decades as a music educator, I want to share why the arts matter. Last week I sat down to give my grandson his first piano lesson. I can see the twinkle in his eye when he plays a made up song. It reminds me what art is all about as I clap and cheer for the three fine arts teachers honored at Benton High School. Our classmate, Aubert “Buddy” Davis, class of 1971, summed it up for us in his words to honor three teachers that night...

The Arts teach us to :

• Set clear measurable goals
• Dream big!
• Ethnic diversity is a strength
• To remember there is a big world out there waiting for you
• Practice, practice, practice 
• Family means everything
• Folks behind the scenes are just as important as the stars on stage
• To succeed, Give it your all and then some