Nope, not going back to WaKeeny, Kansas this week. However, I will go back in time to 1907 the year MENC was founded. The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years old. The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour. The average US worker made between $200 to $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 a year; a dentist $2500 a year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 a year. 90% of all US doctors had no college education. And my favorite - most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo. Only 6% of all Americans graduated from high school and two out of every ten US adults could not read or write.
By 1906, music study was recognized in Chelsea, Massachusetts, as a curriculum for which students could receive high school credit. With the growing evidence of public support for music education as an essential part of every child's background came increasing recognition of the complexity of the task faced by music teachers. SO, one year later in 1907 right there in Keokuk, Iowa, were 104 persons attending a conference of school music teachers at a church trying to band together in a professional association dedicated to enhancing, sharing, and promoting the best in music education for American children. WOW, I sound like a history lesson this morning! Not bad for Monday -- I'm trying to behave a little in my world which doesn't happen often.
Today we have representatives from the Show Choir community in MENC headquarters discussing possible joint adventures between them and MENC. MENC President Lynn Brinckmeyer; MENC President-Elect Barbara Geer; and MENC Immediate Past President David Circle arrived yesterday to meet with a number of individuals including the show choir community (Joel Biggs, Chad Alexander, and David Mollencamp), InTune Magazines executives (Irwin Kornfeld and Angelo Biasi), and MENC staff relative to preparing the MENC budget for fiscal year 2007-08.
It has been a busy few weeks in my world. I feel like I'm swimming with the sharks and not the bait material -- but sometimes you just don't know. We are working fervently to get the needed materials for the upcoming Centennial Congress and National Assembly prepared and copied. There are days my desk looks like chaos and other days it is chaos. There is a difference. However, since I need to check on the meetings in the board room I am going to leave you contemplating what it was like to wash your hair in egg goo. Yes, the photo to your left is me and egg goo.
