Kudos to another excellent bunch of honorees for the Uptown Theater Awards, now apparently conducting the 10th annual awards ceremony. They, like many of us, don’t count the COVID-19 pandemic year.
This year’s honorees included Rich Martin, David Osterberg, Shirley Ryan, Guy Booth and Lynda Hakken.
Jacqueline Briggs Martin spoke about her husband Rich’s passion for music all through his career as a teacher, building courses on the history of jazz alongside other subjects he taught with students. He played Duke Ellington in the morning to get his kids out of bed, and in other ways kept his love of music alive when he wasn’t playing. When he got the opportunity to perform alongside Eddie Piccard in later years, he asked for the chance to do so, even if it wasn’t paid, just to play with a group on instruments once more.
“We will forever be grateful to Eddie Piccard,” Jacqueline said. “Rich has now been playing jazz music for 26 years because he kept his love of music in his heart. You just never know when life will open a door to do the things you love to do.”
Rick Elliott spoke about Guy Booth’s impact to the community and arts.
Booth and his wife, Ann, were among the couples who welcomed the Elliott’s to the community years ago, and their love for arts was something that connected to the Elliotts. Elliott said the other big thing Booth was known for was working as a lwayer, where he helped on some big cases in Mount Vernon, including defending fellow inductee Osterberg in his chicken coop lawsuit. Booth as lawyer was also influential in helping many of the non-profit organizations in the community establishing their papers that incorporated them as such, as well as a founding member of the Mount Vernon Historic Preservation Commission where he and fellow members work to protect the historic districts in the community.
“It was Booth’s calm process that helped so many of these organizations passionate about the arts be founded,” Elliott said.
Doug Hansen, fellow Cornell College professor, spoke about David Osterberg.
Hansen said Osterberg first arrived in Mount Vernon in 1975, as a professor at Cornell College. Osterberg taught at Cornell for six years, and then ran for elected office. In his time in elected office, he helped pass legislation on ground water protection and energy efficiency. After his time in elected office, Osterberg then worked on policy primers with the University of Iowa Public Health department. Since retiring, Osterberg has continued his passion of teaching, helping immigrants to learn a second language as well as continuing to help monitor water quality locally.
Babs Moore spoke about Lynda Hakken’s musical career.
Hakken was born and raised in Michigan, and was playing piano at a very young age. She had formal lessons throughout high school, and then helped train fellow students on piano and organ as she started her college career. She completed her masters and doctorate degrees at the University of Iowa, and then taught at Cornell College for a number of years, teaching students how to play piano and organ.
“If you’ve never seen Linda play the organ, you really should,” Moore said.
Hakken will be holding a concert at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Iowa City Sunday, Nov. 9, at 3 p.m.
Finally, Kim Benesh and Shawna Grayson, players on Shirley Ryan’s first state championship volleyball team, spoke about Ryan’s impact to the community.
Ryan arrived in Mount Vernon the same year as coach Jim Bellamy.
She was a physical education teacher at the high school level, introducing numerous units that hadn’t been taught before for students. One of her attributes as a gym teacher she was known for was letting students pick teams, but not telling them which teams they were building for. She found that developed fair teams for players.
Ryan was instrumental in beginning the volleyball program at Mount Vernon in 1972, one of the first 74 schools who started that sport that year.
“She’d never played volleyball before coaching, but that didn’t stop her from learning all about the game and coaching girls on what she learned,” Benesh said.
And that program of volleyball had three state championship teams, saw Ryan named coach of the year for three times and had numerous young women that Ryan coached.
“Ryan is the culture of this community,” Benesh said. “Teachers are the backbone of the community of Mount Vernon. She earned this recognition through the blood, sweat and tears that went into her championship programs over the years as well.”