Coralie

Among the brightest and most sparkling jewels of all is Coralie Runyon Jones.  I guess it is no surprise that I would include her among people who have made remarkable contributions to the town where we live.  And indeed, she certainly has.

Coralie was born in western Kentucky.  Her father was a lawyer and a Presbyterian Minister (curious combination) and her mother, a concert pianist. Coralie would play under the grand piano while her mother practiced, which was a daily routine.  Somehow, the proximity of all that music infected Coralie's soul, and she has been one of music's most ardent missionaries.

Coralie came to Maysville around 1940 as a freshly college-graduated teacher.  She went to work for the Mason County school board and her assignment was to teach music, of all things, at Orangeburg school.  In Orangeburg, at the time, singing was relegated, privately, to the shower, and publicly, to church on Sunday morning.  That state of affairs was not long to be. 

One of the things which has distinguished Coralie Runyon Jones is that she is very assertive and she brought that quality with her when she first arrived on our scene.  Almost all of the boys at Orangeburg hoped to be a basketball star;  few of them ever thought they'd wind up in a choral group under the direction of the newest staff/teacher in the school.  But wind up they did.  And soon, they, along with the girls, were loving every minute.  There was no slacking off.  The music was classical and difficult.  And the execution, precise.  She would have it no other way. 

It wasn't long until her choir was noticed by the Maysville School System, always thought to be the superior educational opportunity in our area.  Shortly, Coralie was recruited to preside over the music program of the Maysville schools.  Here, she worked wonders with students at all levels.  She had met John Farris in college and prevailed on the administration to offer him a job directing the high school band.  They worked together for years and Maysville's band was the envy of the state.  Coralie always took groups of singers to the Morehead contest and consistently received superior ratings with almost every entry.  In short, Coralie and John Farris introduced Maysville to good music and it has thrived ever since.

I can't remember what grade I was in, but it was announced that any student who wanted to go to the Good Friday service would be excused from school for the afternoon.  Well, you know, any excuse to get out of school, particularly on a lazy spring afternoon.   I left the school and went down town to the Presbyterian Church for the service.  Everything had been removed from the chancel, including the pulpit, the lecturn, the altar and the organ.  Filling the organ and choir loft, as well as the chancel were the members of the Maysville Civic Chorus, an organization created and directed by Coralie Runyon.  There was a lady named Mrs. Calvert, Charlie Calvert's great aunt, who played the organ and another lady, brought in by Coralie, who played the harp.  The sanctuary was full to overflowing, but I had a seat where my grandmother had always sat.  The music was The Seven Last Words by a French composer, duBois.  And it began. . . .

I sat there mesmerized.  I didn't stir.  And what started as an excuse to skip school became an experience so enlightening that I have never forgotten that day.  It was the beginning of my lifelong love affair with classical music and with the phenomenon of Coralie Runyon, not yet Jones.  The music lasted maybe 45 minutes to an hour, maybe not that long, but I don't remember breathing once from beginning to end.  It was sublime.

Actually, I was frightened of Coralie for years and years after that experience. I loved music, but I regarded her as so far superior to anything I could ever achieve that I simply couldn't approach her.  By this time, she was no longer teaching at Maysville; perhaps she was teaching at Ripley, wherever.

One evening at a cocktail party given by Bill and Zoe Chamness, I, with the aid of libation, got up my nerve to talk to Coralie, and found her delightful; still powerful and demanding, but simply delightful.  I asked her if she could teach me to play Schubert's Ave Maria and she looked at me and said, "Of course I can.  That wouldn't be any trouble at all."  And so, during the next four to five years, with a piano lesson every week, I learned the Ave Maria and some other pieces as well, as you might imagine.

What Coralie did with the Maysville Civic Chorus, she did years later with the Maysville Community College Choir.  The first time I heard them was at a practice session, again at the Presbyterian Church.  This time, Jim Clarke was playing the organ, and the sound of the music was etherial.  The acoustics in that church are superb, and the music she made there was better.  She took the group to Lexington to sing in the Singletary Center, and the chairman of the UK music department required his faculty to attend so that they would know what could be done with a local choir under the right direction.

Coralie Runyon Jones continues, at 87 years of age, to present quality music, both vocal and string, to the public on a regular basis.  Her next undertaking will involve the melding of the Limestone Chorale (her singers) with the UK Symphony Orchestra, an event you should be looking forward to.

So, how should we sum up this most sparkling jewel of Maysville?  Each of you remembers a few exceptional teachers in high school, and, perhaps, college.  I remember Flossie Jones, Dean Turnipseed, Bob Hellard, Bob Wilcox and Orville Hayes, every one of them now dead.  But they, like Coralie, were gifted teachers, endowed with the ability to teach and explain in a way students didn't forget.  Each brought a certain moral authority, a self confidence and a love of what they did to their respective jobs.  Coralie always exemplified these rarest of qualities and, like the others, went beyond the job description in everything she undertook.  If you will allow me one more anecdote, Coralie, when she taught at Mason County High School, took her choir to Europe during the summer on several occasions.  Prior to the trips, there was music to be learned (perfectly); there was money to be raised to help choir members whose families were struggling; there were travel arrangements to be made, including transportation, hotels and singing engagements.  These trips were monumental undertakings.  And, as always,  Coralie went the extra mile; she set formal dinner place-settings in the cafeteria, showing every student what each fork, spoon and knife were for, and when to use them.  She discussed appropriate dress.  She prepared lesson plans regarding the sites the students would see and explained why those sites were significant.  The trip was a learning experience in every sense, and she did not want any of her students to be embarrassed, nor did she want the group as a whole to be embarrassed by what might appear to be a lack of polish.  And those kids, long since adults, always reflected a bright light on their teacher and their home.  And, but for their singing for Coralie,  they learned things that they would never have conceived.

God richly bless Coralie Runyon Jones for her light held high these many years; we, ourselves, have already been blessed by her presence and work in the home we call Maysville.