Mars Hill College has been chosen as the new location for the Women Band Director’s International Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame will be dedicated during a concert of the Mars Hill College Wind Symphony on Saturday, Feb. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at Moore Auditorium.
The WBDI Hall of Fame will be located on the main floor of Robert L. Moore Hall, the center of Mars Hill’s music program. The collection of oil paintings will honor outstanding WBDI members who have distinguished themselves in the music profession through national and/or international recognition and musical achievement.
Michael Robinson, band director and professor of music at Mars Hill, said the Hall of Fame is a “who’s who” among female band directors across the United States. He said he was thrilled that the memorial would be housed at the college for a number of reasons.
“These women achieved great things at a time when being a band director was a man’s profession,” Robinson said. “Even now, many of them can continue to be role models for the future female band directors and educators here at Mars Hill, and elsewhere. The presence of the Hall of Fame in Moore Hall will also draw attention to our excellent and rigorous music program here at Mars Hill. It is a great honor for Mars Hill to house this memorial.”
Robinson has a special connection to the most recent inductee into the WBDI Hall of Fame. Pat Garren, 2008 inductee, was his colleague at Asheville Middle School where she taught for the duration of her career. Garren, who was inducted in December at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, will represent all members of the Hall of Fame at the February 21 concert when she guest conducts a number with the MHC wind Symphony.
The initial induction ceremony for the Women Band Directors Hall of Fame was held at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Only 2 paintings were hung at the time of the dedication of the Hall of Fame. The collection was later moved to the Sousa House in West Lafayette, Indiana. The collection to be moved to Mars Hill College has now grown to six members.
The following are the WBDI Hall of Fame Members: Gladys Wright, Helen May Butler, also known as “The Female Sousa”; Elizabeth Green, (an author of one of the textbooks currently in use in the Mars Hill College music program); Marie Louisa Cotaya; Barbara Lovett; and Garren.
The Women Band Directors International (WBDI) was officially chartered on December 18, 1969 in Chicago, Illinois as the Women Band Directors National Association. In December 1997, the organization officially adopted the current name, and in December 2006 celebrated their 37th anniversary at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago.
WBDI is an organization in which every woman band director is represented at the international level regardless of the length of her experience, or the level at which she works. It is the only international organization for women band directors, and is intended to serve as an association which supports, promotes, and mentors women in the band field.
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