SEVERANCE HALL: For the second time, a Smethport native was recently able to see the high school band she directs play at the prestigious Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kristin Dillenbeck of Mount Jewett tells us her daughter, Connie Elliott Sommers took her Edgewood High School symphonic band to the hall for the annual Northeast Ohio Band Invitational — the second time her band has been chosen for the event.
Only four bands from Northeast Ohio were invited to play.
Connie graduated from Smethport High School in 1989 and has been teaching for 22 years, and her 15-year-old son, Joshua, was first chair percussionist with the Edgewood symphonic band.
The hall is known for being the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Connie tells us celebrities such as Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland have conducted in the hall, too.
An interesting side note to give some idea of the grandeur of Severance Hall. It was featured in the 1997 film “Air Force One.” According to the International Movie Database, footage of the outside of Severance Hall was used as the palace of one of the film’s characters, Kazakhstan terrorist General Ivan Radek.
YELLOWSTONE: Today is the 145th anniversary of the beginning of the first national park in the United States.
The National Park Service states on a webpage about the park, “On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. The world’s first national park was born.”
According to the National Park Service, the idea for that first national park was supposedly born during a discussion around a campfire.
“As the myth goes, in 1870, explorers gathered around a campfire at the junction of two pristine rivers, overshadowed by the towering cliffs of the Madison Plateau.They discussed what they had seen during their exploration and realized that this land of fire and ice and wild animals needed to be preserved. Thus, the legend goes, the idea of Yellowstone National Park was born.
How many great ideas have been born from campfire discussions that never came to fruition?
