Patrick: The woman behind the productions

(Photo by Kris Todd) Nancy Patrick, the Clay Central-Everly vocal music instructor and musical sponsor, came by her artistic abilities naturally. She improved them with proper training. [Order this photo]

She's not only trained vocally, she's taken piano, organ, saxophone and dance lessons.

Even so, she comes by her artistic, creative ways naturally.

Patrick, the eighth of 13 children born to the late Sylvester Joseph "S.J." and NaDyne Patrick, was raised to value family, church and education. The native of Mapleton still holds those priorities near and dear today.

"Family's important to me -- which is why I think I like teaching, because it is a family, especially in your fine arts," the Clay Central-Everly vocal music teacher and musical sponsor said.

While Patrick's 12 siblings shone in music, whether vocal or instrumental, she excelled in it.

"My parents saw that, promoted it and never really pushed me," she said. "I always had the opportunity to take piano lessons, take voice lessons, take organ lessons and take dance. They always wanted to make sure that we had all of that."

Her father, a dairy farmer, played trombone in dance bands and toured around on weekends in order to make extra money.

"He was very good and played in the Iowa State University marching band and concert band," Patrick said of the late S.J. Patrick. "He also sang. He was a good singer, too."

As she recalled her first official act as a soprano soloist -- singing "O Holy Night" with the church choir and her older sisters, Sandra and Pam, accompanying on the piano -- as a fourth grade student, Patrick's smile grew as she reflected her father always wanted a soprano.

"I was his soprano," she said softly. " ... He always said, 'You're my soprano.' It seemed like he just knew that this was what I was going to be."

Patrick's mother and her sister, who played the piano and violin, were also very musically inclined.

"She was a fantastic piano player, just incredible," Patrick said of her mother. "She could have been a fantastic classical pianist, but she got married instead and had 13 kids."

NaDyne Patrick also chose to re-enter school to become a math and physics teacher in the 1930s, after all her children had enrolled in school themselves. After graduating from Morningside College, Patrick's mother went back for one more year to its music conservatory, where she pursued extensive training and experience in piano and organ.

Patrick clearly remembers how her mother would encourage her to practice the piano with all her being: By leaning a broom against the piano, placing a dust cloth on top of it and walking away.

"She'd never say a word. But what she was trying to say was, 'If you don't have time to practice the piano, you can do this,'" Patrick recalled with a smile, admitting she doesn't enjoy housekeeping. "So, I practiced piano and my voice and my saxophone."

NaDyne Patrick also arranged for various dance instructors -- including her daughter-in-law, Carol -- to travel to their home on Friday nights, stay all day Saturday and then take the bus back to their Sioux City dance studio. She would sit at the piano and play while her children were allowed to take any type of lesson they wanted to.

Patrick, who began dancing as a 3-year-old, took ballet, tap and toe lessons, among others.

"By the time I was in high school, it got to the point where I was doing too much and my father said, 'You're taking piano, voice, saxophone and dance. Something has to give,'" she recalled. So, as a Maple Valley High School freshman, Patrick chose to give up the dance.

"But, I actually went back a couple years and helped with ballroom dancing," she said. " ... We had a football coach who believed if the boys learned dance steps, they'd be better on the field. So, he made his varsity football team take ballroom dance every fall. I went in with a couple other girls, friends of mine, and we were the ones who got our feet stepped on. We were the ones they had to dance with."

The woman who will celebrate her 61st birthday on March 24 fondly remembers her 18th birthday, when her parents introduced her to opera with a showing of "La boheme" in Sioux City.

Just as he saw "my soprano" in her, Patrick's father witnessed some of the makings of his sister, Elvera (Patrick) Palmer, a professional opera singer who sang in the Kansas City Opera Company and performed in Belgium, in his eighth child.

The teenager with a "huge, monstrous voice" trained further, majoring in music education and minoring in vocal performance at Simpson College in Indianola. Patrick performed with the Simpson College Madrigal Singers for four years.

"That's why I went there," she recalled. "Opera was secondary for me. But, it was what really instilled in me the love of choral music. Because we really studied different styles and different literature. We also sang in five different languages. So, we really had to have a good basis of all that type of musical literature."

Patrick won several competitions, including the Iowa Metropolitan Opera auditions, where she placed at the regional level. She also placed or won the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition four times as a collegian and young adult.

After graduating, Patrick moved to Iowa Falls, where she competed in more competitions and sang oratorios for various places, as well as performed as a soloist. The competitiveness she encountered during this time period helped Patrick to realize she didn't want to make her living as a professional singer.

"I think if you ask anybody in the performance field, they'd tell you competition is really fierce -- especially when you're a soprano. There's a zillion sopranos," she recalled. "I'd go to a competition, and there'd be 75 people there -- and 50 of them would be sopranos. So, you had to be the exception."

In order to remain viable, Patrick expanded her vocal range and started doing mezzo-soprano and alto soloist roles also.

But in order to pay the bills, the recent college graduate began teaching Head Start and working at a daycare center in Iowa Falls.

"That's when I thought, 'No, this is what I want to do. I want to teach.' So, I went back to UNI, picked up voice lessons to get back into singing and a little extra study in choral music, and then I taught five years at Burlington Notre Dame High School in Burlington."

When Patrick began looking for another district to call home, the former Clay Central answered in 1986. After being based in Royal as a K-12 vocal instructor for three years, Patrick transitioned to the neighboring school in Everly when Clay Central and Everly merged.

She began chartering buses to take CCE music department students and a core group of adults from the area to a weekend performance at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater in Minnesota each November. The school tradition that started in the early 1990s continues to display what professional performances are all about. It's also become a life lesson for students in dressing up, presenting oneself in a socially-appropriate manner and eating a meal consisting of several courses, among other things.

Today, the CCE teacher leads a fifth-sixth grade chorus, a seventh-eighth grade chorus and high school choir students. Patrick also teaches music theory and music theater at the Clay County school's secondary level.

"Not having children myself, I'm very proud of my children I have here and proud of what they do," she said. " ... You feel you must be doing something right when they want to do what you do and then take it that next step further, and maybe further and further."

Like the youthful performers she mentors do, Patrick still strives to evolve in her musical abilities. She continues to do this while directing the Grace United Methodist Church chancel and adult choirs, directing Spencer Community Theatre productions annually, as well as a musical every year at CCE. This specific production has become an event students and community members alike look forward to.

"We've had some really excellent kids who have been on the stage and taken a hold of their characters. It's great. They love it. And that, to me, is worth everything if they enjoy what they're doing and are proud of how well they present themselves," Patrick said.

WHAT: Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"

WHO: Major and Supporting Characters include:

Denotes major roles

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, March 19

7 p.m. Friday, March 20

7 p.m. Saturday, March 21

2 p.m. Sunday, March 22

WHERE: Old gymnasium

306 E. Second St., Everly

ADMISSION: Evening performances: $7 for adults and $5 for students

Sunday family matinee: Special discounted prices will be offered to families