Note from Joe Watts

Subject: Winfield Music Site
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 22:29:12 -0500
From: "J. D. Watts"
To: "Banks, J. J."

J.J.:

I guess you got the info sent by Mrs. Greene of California. (Mother's
obituary, photos, etc.) I see Bill has added the info into the
collection. It never ceases to amaze me how many top notch professional
musicians started in Winfield, many of whom I have never heard of.

Bill said a long time ago that someone needs to write the Music section
of the site because he knows little or nothing about it. We have
collected a lot of very interesting historical information but it lacks
some sort of narrative chronology.

I would be willing to try to write something like this but , to do it
right, I would need some help in the information department. Things
that would help a great deal would be:

1. Names and dates (and perhaps photos) of all the music directors of
WHS.

2. Dates and description of major musical events in Winfield from the
beginning (some we have already in the website info).

3. List of all known professional musicians who came from Winfield and
their accomplishments.

4. Music teachers of Winfield (Mrs. Greene mentioned the Dielmanns
----I remember the name Fern Dielmann but I don't know who she was).
There were piano teachers like Merle Steinberg , Mrs. Odenweller, and
many others that I don't remember and string teachers like Leoti
Newland.

If we could somehow gather a lot of this kind of information, we could
probably begin to see who the big contributors to this musical history
were.

It would be interesting to try to identify the unique school board
policies and practices (budget, etc.) in Winfield that allowed this
unique music program development and continuity to take place. Most
schools could never have developed this caliber of music program. I
think many of the early successes led to a sort of tradition in support
from officials that nobody, for many years at least, wanted to break.
The very fact that Winfield still had a budget and a rehearsal hall for
a city band the last time I heard is unique, to say the least.

This kind of information after the fact is going to be difficult to get
but I'm sure it's there somewhere. It would probably take someone in
Winfield with access to Courier and school historical data to gather it
up.

It would be great if we could somehow write a Winfield Music History
with the accuracy and completeness it deserves. I have enough time to
be able to do a lot of writing, organization, etc. but the data
acquisition would be very hard for me at a distance of 1500 miles.

Let me know what you think about the possibility of getting any or all
of the needed information. It would seem that, with e-mail and old
farts with computers, we should be able to do it sooner or later. I
guess it probably better be sooner if we do it.

Regards,

Joe