We have always been a proponent of the promise that little girls can trace their beginnings to sugar, spice, and everything nice.
The recent concert in Bass Auditorium, given by the girls from Mississippi State College for Women, was proof of the pudding. There was charm and pulchritude to spare, throughout the glee club and the college singers, and boy, how they could sing!
MSCW's new prez, Dr. Hogarth, and the revitalized alumni association which is sparked by Nan McHaney the executive secretary are to be congratulated over the way the grand old Columbus school has hit the comeback trail.
The current tour of the club is a splendid gesture of goodwill, which will make all of us MSCW-conscious, particularly those high school seniors who represent the life-blood of the collegiate system. We are sorry that every seal in the house was not occupied, which would surely have been the case had the public realized what a treat it was missing. But the auditorium was comfortably filled, and the appreciation of the program was in no wise lacking.
Several folks regretted that Greenville could not boast a single member of the group, but if we take in the metropolitan area including Leland and Hollandale, there's Mary Kathryn Rose and Donette Dunaway of the College Singers and the Glee Club's First Alto section respectively. And Shirley Picked, of Second Soprano section, lived here until two or three years ago when her people moved to Batesville.
It could be, too, that Barbara Mitchell was born in Greenville, which is certainly a feather in this man's town's cap. For Barbara took the lead in several of the club's fine numbers, including "Battle Hymn of the Republic", and took several nice bows in consequence. We are claiming Barbara for Greenville because her parents (and Old Stuff's friends) Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Mitchell, made their home here from 1931 up to the closing year of the Second World War, and taught at Greenville High School. They lived on Starling Street, between Fairview and Cannon (where the Jack Burkes live now), and we used to ride the city bus with Barbara and other children of that neighborhood.
(We mentioned the rides to Miss Mitchell, at the reception following the concert but, alas, she could only remember the bus.)
Also among the lead sopranos was Mary Kimbrough ("Kim") Alexander of Itta Bena. She is Joe Alexander's daughter, and Joe's mother was a Kimbrough from Carrollton. We went to A&M with Joe, who is a cousin of Andrew, Hugh, Edward and other scions of the local Alexander tribe. These latter are all musically Inclined (Ed Jr. being a slide-trombone virtuoso), but will all need an early start to catch up with Kim.
The Crumps had two charming house guests in Sylvia Duck, of the Glee Club, and Virginia Sansing, of the College Singers. And two more of the group, Alice Freeman Sharp and Barbara Wofford, broke bread with us too. Sylvia and Alice are room - males both live at Louisville, in Winston County. Virginia's home is Columbus, and Barbara lives at Union, in Newton County.
We enjoyed the girls tremendously, and why not? For they went all-out for our stories and Sylvia, bless her heart, said we reminded her so much of her Daddy. (If it had been her granddaddy, we'd still have been pleased, 'cause we'd just naturally like to be kin to Sylvia.) And when we suggested that Louisville was but a short "greasing" down the road from Philadelphia, Miss Sansing smiled and said that her grandpa frequently used that same expression. She is majoring in music at MSCW, with emphasis on organ- playing, and we have offered to go along as organ-pumper when Virginia makes the grand tour.
So the Glee Club came, they saw, they sang, and they conquered, and included in that conquest, were such notables as Lib Nelson, Muggs Lowry, Step Cortner, Sondra Dismukes, Eddie Jo Lenz, and Ann Carroll Hunting, who are booked for MSCW next fall.
Here's a belated orchid to Helen Spiars. president of MSCW's Alumnae for the great state of Mississippi, and the not inconsiderable part she is playing in the aforesaid comeback trail. And we are still saying that girls in general, and MSCW girls in particular, got their start in sugar and spice, and everything nice!”
B.C.
