October 19, 2007

District 7690 Governor Dave McCoy Comes To Visit.

Special Guest at the Scribe Table today was April Mahan Thornton, work widow of Cooper Thornton (missing since last spring in the horrifying First National File Avalanche you probably heard about). April is the President Nominee of the Asheboro-Randolph Chamber of Commerce, meaning she will be the President in 2009-10, after our own Kaye Bryan is Chamber leader in ‘08-’09. That was the big news, which soon devolved into a discussion of what she was wearing– faux leopard skin, with some kind of color-changing holographic jewel… she was sitting right beside of me, it was hard to miss. Just happening to have a camera at hand, I took a picture… I have seen the future of the Chamber of Commerce, and it is twinkly-faux-leopard. Really.

On another note, I told the Presbyterian table that I had referred a reference question to them from a very nice young lady who contacted me from UNC-Chapel Hill. Sarah McNulty is a senior there, and is writing her senior paper about the history of her family’s restaurant in Asheboro. Her late grandparents Burrell Hopkins and Ermalee Luther Hopkins started Hop’s Restaurant in the former bus station on Sunset Avenue in 1954. Sarah is researching the whole story of eating out in Asheboro, as well as the role of Hop’s in local desegregation. [At a sit-in at Hop's on January 25, 1964, sixty African-Americans were arrested and jailed. The Courier-Tribune article only lists the names of about 30 of them, since "the remainder are juveniles." Her grandmother didn't understand what all the fuss was about; black people could order anything they wanted at the take-out window...] Sarah is the daughter of Cheryl Hopkins McNulty and Joe McNulty of Greensboro; Joe is the older brother of Phillip McNulty, a member of the AHS band who was killed in a car accident on Dixie Drive in the mid-1960s (a band award is still named after him). She is also the neice of Sandra Hopkins Thomas and her husband Paul Thomas, of Thomas Tire. If you or anyone you know wants to talk to her about the history of eating out in Asheboro, or about desegregating Hop’s, call her at 336-314-0243 or email her at sem1129@email.unc.edu .

There were enough District Governors on the dias to induce a Harmonic Convergence, but HR got us going dispite all the excess leadership capacity. After the usual Meet and Greet, Sam Cranford led the Four Way Test, HR led the Pledge, and Phil Shore (moonlighting in a coat and tie) took care of the Prayer. Mini Singh introduced guests Pamela Voncannon, with Henry Trollinger; Pat Allred, connected to yet eating separate from Don Allred, and Maynard Reid, High Sheriff of Randolph County and member of the Randolph Club.

Henry introduced our student guests from Asheboro High: Meleah Faucette, daughter of Rich and Toni Nelson, is one of five children. She is a member of the band and captain of the varsity cheerleading and colorguard teams. She has been trained in dancing since age 4, and plans to open her own dance studio after majoring in college in English and Spanish. Tyler Pollard, son of Dean and Dianna Pollard, is also a member of the band, where he leads the trumpet section. He attended Governor’s School, plays on the Varsity Golf team, and is a Park Street Player. Sadly, he is a Teenage Republican, but on the bright side he intends to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, so he may outgrow all that. He plans to major in biology and study medicine. In his “spare time,” he says, he works 25 hours a week at America’s Road House. I’m not sure Ed Clayton and Phil Shore put that much time on the clock each week…

Richard Garkalns has returned from his European tour, and he brought us a flag from Nuremberg, Germany. It looks pretty nifty. Foster Hughes presented the club with plaques won by the team we sponsored in the Asheboro Parks and Recreation Tackle Football League– our team won both the regular season and tournament championships. Next Week: Don’t come to AVS. Instead, go early to REMC on McDowell Road across from K&W cafeteria. Dale Lambert is hosting the club there, and promises outdoor excitement: a pole-climbing exhibition and a pole-top rescue, if they can just get some dummy 25 feet up in the air to rescue. Any volunteers?

HR read us a Tar Wheel excerpt from November 3, 1960. City School Superintendent Guy Teachey spoke to the club, where he said that Asheboro Rotary “ranked near the top” of service clubs in Asheboro. Mr. Teachey was a past president of another club known only as “that broom salesman club.”

Past District Governor Don Allred introduced current (not so “new” anymore, since we are his 49th club visit!) District Governor David McCoy. Dave is from Philadelphia, met his wife Linda at Catawba College in Salisbury, and has two daughters and two grand-daughters. They live in High Point, where he owns a furniture rep firm and is a member of the High Point club. Don says Dave is “a great guy doing a great job.”

Dave thanked all the people on the podium, which took a while, as it included  PDG Wilbert Hancock, DG-elect Charles Allen, Assistant DG for District 8 Mary Joan Pugh, PDG Don and PDG Sam Cranford,  not to mention Prez HR, and Past Prez Phil Shore. Dave also acknowledged his wife Linda,  to whom he has been married for 42 years, since the week after college graduation. For good measure, he called club Executive Secretary Elizabeth Mitchell forward,  so the club could sing Happy Birthday to her in advance of her 50th, tomorrow.

I won’t repeat Dave’s entire biography, because you can read it yourself off the District website at <http://www.rotary7690.org/2007-08/2007-2008-District-Governor-Bio.shtm .  [However, I will note that he and Your Scribe are undoubtedly related back in the misty dawn of Scottish history, as "McCoy" and "McKay" are essentially the same transliteration of the Gaelic name "MacAoidh", meaning "son of Morgan."  "McCoy" is how all my grandmother's relatives in Harnett county pronounced "McKay," anyway.]

Dave grew up in a Rotary family in Philly, where both his father and grandfather were Rotarians.   Dave himself was 42 before he joined the High Point club in 1986, basically because no one ever invited him to come, and it never occurred to him to seek it out.  He said he joined the 200 member club for the business contacts, for the fellowship and friendship and community involvement, but also basically thinking that with so many people in the club, he could hide form additional commitment.  Luckily, he says, High Point has a strong orientation program and demands strong involvement, so the club wouldn’t let him hide.

Dave says our challenge is to put the lie to the old joke, “Rotary is for old men- and their fathers.”  In 1976 the average age of a Rotary member was 45; in 2005 it was 62.  We must reverse the trend, and open up our clubs to the transformative impact of younger people.   One difference each member can make is to introduce one person to Rotary– maybe they’ll be the one to change the world and make an even bigger difference.

In closing, Dave explained why we have ice cream for dessert today.  Last year DG Mitzi’s theme song “Country Roads” said West Virginia was “almost heaven.”  Since there’s no song about Philadelphia that’s worth singing, Dave asked for what is really close to his heart- ice cream.  “I’ve had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he says.  “THAT’S Heaven!”

H.R. presented  Dave and Linda with a piece of Phil Morgan pottery as a gift of the club, and adjourned by telling us a little about the dictionary giveaway (see last week’s post) and reminded us that next week is AT REMC.

Joint Meeting: October 10, 2007

You could tell it was a big day at AVS– not just inside the building, where we took over the whole space, for once; but there was even something different about the parking lot. Allen Holt didn’t drive a copperhead Ford, but a Copperhead Van was there all the same. And the eagle-eyed could also pick out faint tell-tale signs of our VIP speaker that a CSI might have been able to interpret correctly as evidence that North Carolina’s Junior U.S. Senator Richard Burr was somewhere close by.

When both Asheboro Rotary and Randolph Rotary meet together, it looks pretty impressive, and you can be sure that There’s a Whole Lot O’Talking Going On. In fact, we could probably have a pretty satisfying time even without a speaker at a Joint Meeting. But the Very Important Guest was the star of this show, and he had a moving escort from the time he came in the door until he stepped up on the podium. On the rugby team back in college, a cluster of players contesting for possession of the ball was called a “scrum” (they still call it a ’scrummage’ back in England, Elizabeth, which is where we get the football term ‘line of scrimmage’), and usually a player or two ended up with a black eye, bloody nose or scuffed shin before the winning side made off with the ball. Luckily no admirers were hurt in the scrum around the Senator, and the object of their affection was safely delivered to the podium. (Hey, it’s no secret that Your Scribe is Chairman of the Randolph County Democratic Party; I offered to let a card-carrying Republican write this week, but there were no takers.)

With two clubs there are two sets of officers to contend for authority, but they seemed to share power without any problems. President Mark Key of the Randolph Club started out, since by rights this is his proper meeting day. He told a political joke, “Headlines of 2035,” which had some lines about Castro lying at age 112, George Z. Bush losing his run for office, and President Chelsea Clinton banning smoking. (You had to be there.)

RCC President Bob Shackleford of the Randolph Club was introduced to provide our invocation (he’s a minister in his own right, you know). Then our own H.R. Gallimore led the Pledge, and handled the baton back to President Mark (for a hymn and the offering plate, he joked). Next week Mark announced is the 25th Anniversary of the Randolph Rotary Club, sponsored by the Asheboro Club. (Thanks, Dad! Since this Tar Wheel is posted the day after that, I hear it was a good party.) Mark also congratulated District Governor-in-Waiting Charles Allen, back from “Zone Training” (where mere mortals learn to be District Governors), on his upcoming major wedding anniversary to the lovely, yet shy, timid and self-effacing, Sandra Allen.
Randolph Club welcomed guests Candace Garrett of BB&T, Robert Lewis, Marketing Manager of the Copperheads, Maggie Stevens, of L&M Floor Covering, new lawyer Dee Hoard, and Eddie Burks, candidate for Asheboro City Council and Mayor of Franklinville 20-some years ago while Your Scribe was in law school and Otherwise Occupied. (There may have been more Randolph Rotary guests, but these were all I could rapidly memorialize.) Randolph Rotary then held their regular “50-50 Raffle, where people who bought tickets when they came in the door could draw a card to win the pot. In this instance, the pot held $244, but the winning ticket (I can’t read my note about who that was) didn’t pick a winning card, so the pot carries over.

President H.R. Gallimore took the podium for the Asheboro Rotary stage of things, and asked everyone to Meet and Greet, in our tradition. He then reminded us all of the Book Donation set for Wednesday. Here’s where the passage of time works in a blog’s favor: we actually have photos of the event, now past, where members of the Club met at the YMCA and were assigned schools to visit and give away dictionaries to third graders. A good crowd fanned out across the county, but these pix are from the HRG and Rebecca Redding foray into Balfour School, where the third graders assembled en masse

to receive their booty

. Here we see HR and Rebecca, with not a thought in their handsome heads (tell-tale empty thought balloons give them away). An exciting time, to be sure.

Rebecca introduced our club guests: Justin Tarleton, guest of Elizabeth Mitchell; Shawn Poe, with Jaci Betts; and Karen Elmore with John O. Toledano. Attending with step-Dad Neal Griffin was Christian O’Briant, learning the financial ropes at the back table. Student guests from AHS were Joey Guy, son of Steve and Lisa Guy, heading toward NCSU for vet school; and Justin Hutton, son of David and Stephanie, looking at UNC and WFU for poli sci or law. He’s started on his political career by being elected president of the Ultimate Frisbee Club.

Mark took over again for the Randolph Club’s “Happy Bucks” time, where people pay $1 to share good news. Sandra Allen was happy about her 17-year old godson interviewing at Oxford; Alan Pugh was happy about his 94-year-old father winning 6 gold medals and the recent Senior Olympics in Raleigh; Charles Allen was happy about being married to the same woman for 45 years, and that the Zone Training had attempted to teach her how to Be a Lady; David Caughron torpedoed all Sandra’s Ladylike Training by welcoming her back to the Rowdy Table (at the Asheboro Club, we just call that the Scribe Table. It’s all Phil Shore’s fault, ask anyone).

President Mark Key introduced our speaker, Senator Richard Burr. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1994, to the U.S. Senate in 2004, replacing John Edwards. The Senator has a wife and two sons, is himself the son of a Presbyterian minister, is a Rotarian, and at least to Mark (minister of Central Methodist Church in Asheboro), his highest qualification is that he is a member of Centenary Methodist Church in Winston-Salem.

Senator Burr spoke about domestic issues first. Health care is the #1 domestic issue, and the next election will decide its future: whether the government runs health care or “a vibrant private sector marketplace survives and flourishes.” He says “a tremendous fundamental change is required for health care to flourish;” the current coverage model is only triggered by illness,and doesn’t promote prevention or wellness.

On economics, he says the U.S. has “an inability to separate our future from our past. We don’t transition easily because we can’t forget about our roots, and other countries don’t have that problem.” (Evidently that mean “our roots” in traditional manufacturing jobs, which are fleeing pretty fast to the Far East, while our pool of workers isn’t being trained for high-tech work.) Even if the local economy is bad, the global economy is stronger than it’s ever been, and we must remember (he says) that the US is a member of the global economy. Successful domestic businesses are those which have created a minimum 60% investment in international business. In the future, children will be more mobile than ever before, he says, and we must equip our students to live anywhere in the world. NC school must give students the tools needed to compete in an international market. There are more cell phones in China than there are people in the US, and there are 17 million blogs there (just one here, and it’s an open question whether anybody reads it). The top 25% of Chinese students is a bigger number than the total number of US students. NC is producing one of the largest pools of college students in the US, and we must develop businesses to keep them here. At Duke, he says 95% of the current graduates will sign contracts to work in NC.

North Carolina will become the 7th most populous state within the next 18 years. Our population will increase 53%,and we’ll need a third house and 3rd school for every two we have now. He says that the most challenging political job of the future will be that of city councilman and county commissioner, coping with the growth that will be required, and planning for education. Education must bebfixed, he says, if the US is to remain an economic leader. Just 70% of US students graduate high school in four years. The percentage is better in NC, 79%, but still not what it should be. NC has the cutting edge of biotech R&D, the Senator says, and we must revise our laws and institutions to keep pace. We should “recognize what we’ve done right and admit what we’ve done wrong, and change it.” One great change, he says, was when Erskine Bowles created a seamless transition between the UNC system and the community college system. Intellectual property will be our country’s most valuable asset in the future, and our biggest challenge will be to protect new ideas and new technologies for a predictable period, so that business and industry can profit from investing in them. That will keep the US the centerpiece of the global economy.

He went on to answer questions, some about the ‘War on Terror’ (“soldiers understand that there are sacrifices to be made to live in a period of stability” -maybe, but do regular citizens?), where he expects “slow progress.” His solution for energy problems is for increased domestic oil exploration; for immigration a “national ID card for every legal resident.” His solution for ‘increasing the approval rating of Congress’ is to “get rid of her”– those at the Scribe Table filled in either Nancy Pelosi or Hilliary Clinton to complete the only obviously partisan jab of the day.

October 5, 2007

We filled up the room last Friday, and many of the crowd were visitors. Just at the Scribe Table, we had Jaci Betts hosting her long-suffering husband, Dr. Charles Betts (heh, just kidding Jaci!), together with Shawn Poe, soon to be a new member. Shawn works with the Career Center at RCC, and is married to Darrell Poe, OSHA inspector and Caraway stock car owner. (I know we’ll hear more about all that later.) Then we also had, with Sandy Grey, his wife Ann and friends Jim Biggers and Adrienne Bailey. At the table next door there was another crowd, all guests of Jamie Stitt: his wife Janice, neighbor Add Penfield, and Peggy and Howard Kilburn. Tom Barton, Ralph Hardison and Aaron Slafky were all visiting from the Randolph Club, where Elizabeth Mitchell, Sandy Grey, Jerry Hill and Your Scribe had all been present Wednesday to hear Elizabeth talk about United Way. [The speakers may change, but the food remains the same...]

Chronologically I’m ahead of myself, but Assistant Sergeant at Arms Mini Singh really did eventually introduce all those people after the usual Four Way (Jamie Stitt) , POA (Prez HRG), and Invocation (Everett T with two prayers for peace). Doug Aiken introduced our student guests from AHS. Caroline Cox, Talmadge Baker’s neighbor, is the daughter of Beth and Craig Cox; she plays on the undefeated AHS volleyball team, is President of the Key Club, and plans to go to ASU and study Insurance Risk Management and Spanish (she was in Spain just this summer, as a matter of fact). Chad Shannon, son of Kathleen, plays baritone in the marching band, is on the Quiz Bowl team and in the Latin Club, and is applying not only to ASU but to Oxford, hoping to study history, philosophy and English. He’s interested in teaching on the university level.

This being the first Friday of the month there were lots of birthdays, most of which passed by me in a whirr, except for October 20th, which I heard is shared by Elizabeth Mitchell and Ted Matney. In Rotary anniversaries, we have John Redding, 11 years, Lyn White 12 years, and Lib Cox, 14 years.

On October 17th, the Book Committee and any other interested parties will meet at 8:45 AM at the YMCA. Under the supervision of Patrick O’Hara, they will then travel to 7 elementary schools and give all the Third Graders their very own Dictionary. If you’ve got the time, be there and help out!

ATTENTION!!! NOTICE!!! ACHTUNG!!!

    There is no meeting for us at AVS next Friday!!!

    We will meet WEDNESDAY, jointly with the Randolph Club, at AVS, to hear Senator Richard Burr, the junior United States Senator from North Carolina.

    Remember, we meet on WEDNESDAY. If you come Friday, you will be LONELY.

Also, the Friday after that we will be hosting the District Governor; and the Friday after that we will meet at REMC, not at AVS. Keep those acronyms straight.

Tar Wheel Archive: from December 11, 1974. Dan Thomas introduced the Student Guest who Your Scribe Red Underwood heard to like “fishing, women and motorcycles.” Alas, “women,” really was “swimming.” Red attributed the difference to Dan’s mumble, though Red (80-something at the time, I think) thought everyone was mumbling then.

Welcome to New Members!

George Bain, Master Trash Sweeper, introduced Roma Cheek to the club. Born a Swindell in Robbins, NC, she started out as a dental hygenist and then went on to dental school at Chapel Hill, so now she has a shingle of her own. One might think being born in Robbins is enough of a farm connection, but George says she is also a member in good standing of the Cow Pie Supper Club, three couples who may not be too finicky about what they eat. For good measure George also threw in a farm joke involving a cow, barbed wire, and “udder destruction.”

Linda Cranford next arose to introduce Cathy Carter Clark, owner of Carter’s Family Pharmacy which back in the day when it was founded by her father Leo Carter, was The Medicine Shoppe. Leo and wife Helen used to be the award-winning rose growers of Asheboro. Cathy’s a member of First Presbyterian Church (no farm connection here- she’s connected to the real Old Boy Network) and is a member of the Randolph County Board of Health. Her daughter Ann Lee now lives in San Jose, CA.

Our own Professor James W. Stitt, Chairman of the Department of History and Politics at High Point University, introduced his fellow Professor of History Larry Simpson. We aren’t clear if this is the 4th or 5th year Larry has been to speak to the club about current affairs in the Middle East. You may remember that Larry has degrees from Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, PA (go Yellow Jackets!); Troy State (now just plain Troy University, in folksy Alabama); and a PhD from West Virginia U (the Mountaineers are the pride of Morgantown). Besides all the courses he teaches on the middle east, Africa and Russia, the HPU website also reveals the Larry is the faculty advisor of the College Republicans. [The days of liberal academics are long past, folks.]

If Winston Churchill hadn’t already used the title, Larry says we could call the current state of middle eastern affairs “The Gathering Storm.” He expects something big to happen after Ramadan, and is particularly worried about the Iranian nuclear program. Just last month there was a secret Israeli air strike on a site in Syria just 40 miles from the Iraqi border, and the lack of public comment indicates to Larry that it was something everyone wants to hide- like nuclear materials from North Korea. Syria claims that they never saw the Israeli planes, implying that the US has given them some kind of stealth technology. Added to the tough talk about Iran’s nuclear program, and the recent PR strike to villify Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Larry won’t be surprised if we see some kind of US military action against their nuclear program. Since Iran has a history of standing up to the big powers, that means that it’s a near certainty Iran would retaliate. We tend to underestimate Ahmadinejad and the Iranians, he says.  Even though the Iranian economy is in tatters, he expects they’ll have a nuclear program before they have any kind of internal social change.

There were lots of questions, as usual. Larry says he supported going into Iraq, but is afraid there would be anarchy if we engage in a speedy withdrawal. Stepping out is not as easy as getting in.  It’s also complicated by China’s support of Iran, which is all about the oil [just like America's involvement in Iraq, huh?].  China has no oil, and wants to knock “the American hegemon” out of the Middle East.  The time ended, but the questions continued after class…  

REMEMBER:  GO TO ROTARY ON WEDNESDAY FOR THE JOINT MEETING!!! 

September 28, 2007

The Greensboro Symphony visits Asheboro Rotary (but Joy Provides the Music)!

Everybody seemed to be on their best behavior, what with the Conductor of the Greensboro Symphony being our speaker.

The Scribe Table started the day with the usual pleasantries: beautiful day, but don’t we just need the rain? Or, What will Phil Shore do if it rains on the Fall Festival for the second straight year? asked George Bain and Phil Koonce. Resign, says the Shoremaster. Then the conversation turned towards Grandfatherhood and Fatherhood: both of those “hoods” are a “piece of cake,” said Elizabeth Mitchell, in comparison to the other, Mother-hood. It depends upon the perspective, I guess.

But the conversation finally died away as we stopped to admire Joy’s power piano, thumping out everything from Born Free to a concerto or two. I’m not sure if it impressed the maestro, but it certainly impressed the Scribe Table!

Another impressive touch were the odd flowers on every table

– courtesy, as usual, of Jaci Betts. Lee Malpass was on the injured reserve list – a broken wing, it  appeared.

Everett Thomas opened with an appropriate invocation from the Book of Common Prayer. Russ Williams led the Four Way Test. Rebecca Redding welcomed Archie Odell from the Randolph Club, and Charles Link, Betty Hunt and Boppy Toledano, all guests of John O. Rodney Mason introduced our student guests from Asheboro High. Marisol Romero is a senior, member of the Key Club and the National Honor Society, and hopes to major in college in chemical and biochemical engineering. Daniel Marley is on the varsity soccer team, plays football and tennis, and hopes to study physics at NC State or Duke. President HR congratulated him on kicking the first field goal in last week’s football win.

Past President Mary Joan Pugh stood to rally the troops to participate in Saturday’s Big Sweep. George Bain and his wife got the jump on everyone by picking up 391 pounds of trash this past week, but tomorrow at 10:00 you can meet Partrick at the YMCA to help supervise the Webelos, who are volunteering. [Your Scribe saw a big crowd of Eastern Randolph JROTC students in the Franklinville park Saturday, with a mountain of refuse, so participation appears to have been high. The rest of the state holds Big Sweep this coming Saturday, the first weekend in October. Phillip Shore, of course, insists on holding the Fall Festival that day, so Randolph County cleans up a week early.

ATTENTION!!!

Next Friday Jamie Stith will bring High Point University's resident expert on the Middle East back to talk. Then, we will hold a Joint Meeting with the Randolph Club the very next WEDNESDAY, where U.S. Senator Richard Burr will speak to both clubs. Asheboro Rotary will NOT meet on Friday that week (the 12th). Then the NEXT Friday (the 19th) is the rescheduled date for our visit from the District Governor- be on your best behavior. The Last Friday of October (the 26th) we will not meet at AVS, but WILL meet offsite at Randolph Electric. Make all these mental changes!!!

HR congratulated John O and Boppy on their 40th wedding anniversary- coming up on the 29th.  HE went on to read an entry from the Tar Wheel of August 3, 1950, where Dr. Jake Fritz RSVP'd to a dinner invitation in handwriting so incomprehensible that Jim Fox translated it into a 8 oz. bottle of medicine.

John O., the long-time representative of the Greensboro Symphony to Randolph County,  introduced the president of the symphony, Lisa Crawford, who introduced our speaker  .

Dimitri Sitkovetsky came to North Carolina as a guest violinist, recruited by former director Stuart Malina.  In 2003 he became the 7th and current Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony, which was created in 1959.   Dimitri (or "Dima," his Russian nickname) was born in Azerbaijan, but grew up in Moscow and emigrated to the US in 1977.  He studied at the Juilliard School, and has worked as a violinist with most of the very best orchestras in the world-- Berlin, Leipzig, London, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc., etc.  He has performed at every festival you every heard of, and many you never heard of.  Besides the Greensboro Symphony, he is also currently the principal Guest Conductor of the Russian State Orchestra.

Dima said he was impressed by this are of North Carolina, especially by the UNCG School of Music, where the new building is perfect for chamber music. [The symphony's new "Rice Toyota Chamber Music Series, sponsored by Garson Rice, is tailored for that facility.]  But he was attracted by our connection to literature:  O. Henry is perhaps better known in Russia than in America; there was even a Russian stamp issued to commemorate his 100th birthday.  So that was the hook that caught his attention!

He is a “music geek,” he told us– geeks being the ones in every profession who show the way forward, the “passionate preachers.”  Dima says that musicians are privileged to be paid for their passion- to work in their hobby.  Music doesn’t need translation, it’s the universal language, beyond words and description, it expresses feelings and emotions.  Everyone responds differently to the same music.  And music doesn’t discriminate by skin, politics or age.  There’s no substitute for experiencing the real thing- all one needs is attention and silence.

The orchestra itself is a team of 75 individuals-people who don’t live or associate together, don’t even work together full time, and may not even be friends, but pool their energies and souls to recreate and reinvigorate something written on paper many years ago.  Yesterday, he said,the symphony played Richard Straus’ tone poem Don Juan, written 100 years ago, about an era 3 or 400 years ago, but it speaks deeply to contemporary audiences.  The symphony, he says, is a machine to travel in time.

Maestro Sitkovesky is an enthusiastic speaker, who obviously loves his job and is excited about his organization.  He is expanding the symphony’s audiences and repertory, and has improved the quality of play.  He has begun an outreach program to public schools, run by the resident conductor, which travels all over the state.  Their 150-member youth symphony performed at Carnegie Hall last year, an unforgettable experience.  He travels constantly, and is used to being away from his family- wife (a New Yorker, former opera singer) and daughter live in London, where his daughter is applying to university.  He grew up playing chess against some of the best grand masters in the world.

The Greensboro Symphony, Dima says, is the best-kept secret in North Carolina, and he is truly lucky to be its music director.   Just come once this year and see– he guarantees the trip isn’t painful.