2024-25 Executive Significant Other Committee (ESCO):
Teresa Francis, ABA President’s SO
Nancy Colburn
Janet Fisher
June Holder
Valerie Taylor
2024-25 SO Sub Committees Chairs:
Biography Committee – Robyn Chapman
Communication Committee – Dee Dee Caneva and Abby Fansler
History Committee – Tracia Austin and Carol Zeisler
Memorial Committee – Pat Bianchi
Midwest Committee – Dorinda Nance
New Members Committee – Laura Schofield
Service Committee – Alisa Carmichael
Biography Committee
The Biography Committee will collect SO biographical information from every SO and make sure the Bios on the SO web pages are updated. The Committee will also preserve the three SO biography books and create other opportunities to share this information with the SOs.
Members:
Robyn Chapman, Chair
Julianne Doyle
Jen Moder-Bell
Susan Schuman
Elizabeth Walczyk
Jessica Walker
Communications Committee
The ABA SO Communication Committee’s primary role is to assist the ABA President’s Significant Other in communicating information to the entire SO group. Additionally, this committee seeks to foster connection among SOs by creating and/or facilitating opportunities to communicate. This Committee will be responsible for creating and distributing content, utilizing a variety of channels including, but not limited to, email, social media and the ABA SO web pages.
Members:
Dee Dee Caneva, co-chair
Abby Fansler, co-chair
Pat Bianchi
Karen Gookin
Susan Hicken
Meredith Seifert
Tammy Shistle
Jennifer Stokes
History Committee
The History Committee is responsible for providing the historical background of the ABA SO group. The members of this committee will be responsible for taking pictures at the ABA annual convention, working with the Biography Committee in collecting pictures of each SO, creating a slide show of current and past pictures/memories from previous conventions, talking to past president SOs and those involved in creating the SO Committee.
Members:
Carol Zeisler, co-chair
Tracia Austin, co-chair
Robyn Chapman
Jana Gephart
Kay Hermann
Beth Kaufman
Jessica Walker
Midwest Clinic Committee
The Midwest Committee organizes an activity for all SOs who attend the Midwest Clinic International Band & Orchestra Conference which is held every December in Chicago. The goal is to increase social interactions and build life-long friendships.
Last year, a small group met on Thursday afternoon at the Hyatt hotel. We visited for a couple hours and had a lot of laughs. It was relaxing and fun. If you are interested in helping us plan other opportunities while at Midwest, we are open to other ideas/suggestions. Please contact any Midwest Clinic Committee member for more information.
Also, please notify Dorinda Nance if you are interested in joining the group in Chicago this year. Dates for the 2024 Midwest Clinic dates are December 18-21.
Members:
Dorinda Nance, chair
Megan Covey
Julianne Doyle
Abby Fansler
Kathy Kaminsky
Stacy McKee
New Member Committee
The New Member Committee is responsible for ensuring that all new members are introduced at the annual convention during the SO meetings. This committee assigns a primary sponsor to each new member. The sponsor then contacts the new member to collect personal information which the sponsor shares with the group while introducing the new member at the upcoming convention. The Committee will also maintain the records of all new members to ensure the Biography and Communication Committees have appropriate contact information.
Members:
Laura Schofield, chair
Molly Cramer
June Holder
Flournoy Humphreys
Beth Kaufman
Judy McInturf
Jen Moder-Bell
Memorial/Outreach/Remembrance Committee
The Memorial Committee will reach out once a year to ABA SOs whose spouse has passed away. The committee will also stay informed about the passing of SOs, prepare a brief memorial to be posted on Facebook and shared at an SO meeting during the annual ABA Convention, and communicate with various sub-committees who need to record the loss.
NOTE: As of now, widows/widowers receive two pieces of communication from ABA: a letter about the convention and a notice about who has passed away.
Members:
Pat Bianchi, chair
Becky Foster
Teresa Francis
Jana Gephart
Tracy Leslie
Judy McInturf
Darlene Pratt
Service Committee
The Service Committee is responsible for creating a service project for SOs to participate in each year.
Members:
Alisa Carmichael, chair
Heather Cook
Megan Covey
Karin Davis
Kelly LaBounty
Dorinda Nance
2024 ABA Convention Highlights from Nancy Colburn
Hello, fellow Significant Others!
First, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended the 2024 ABA Washington, D.C. convention last week! I know it’s not always easy to take a break from your jobs, your family, and other responsibilities, and we’re so glad you could join us. We had a big group this year with about 150 Significant Others (SOs) attending our two meetings. For those who could not make it this year, please know that you were missed, and we really hope to see you at the “All Aboard!” ABA Convention in Chattanooga, TN, next year. Mark your calendars now for what’s sure to be a wonderful time February 25 to March 2, 2025.
Also huge thanks to the Co-Chair of the SO Committee, Valerie Taylor, for planning and running our meetings so skillfully and to our History Committee members, Beth Kaufman, Tracia Austin and Carol Zeisler, for the beautiful tribute to our beloved founder, Ann Bloomquist. And thank you to Jennifer Rhea for providing a lovely memorial of Michaeleen Tolar, who passed away last spring.
This was an unusual year in that we had 22 new SOs to introduce at our meetings. With such a bumper crop of new members to meet and welcome, time didn’t permit to bring in special presentations or entertainment, but that tradition will likely continue at future conventions. However, the New Members Committee team and other volunteers, led by June Holder, did a magnificent job of designing a style of introductions that made for a personal and entertaining way to learn about our new SOs. Thank you to everyone involved in that process and a big welcome to our new SOs: Matt Schaefer, Nikki Thompson, Mette Krüger, Julianne Kirk Doyle, Philip Laden, Jim Kelly, Julia Talley, Amber Howard, Sarah Saucedo, Errol Rhoden, Kelly Galyen, Evan Hinds, Kendra Karriker, Lisa Balmages, Becky Odajima, Helena Pham, Robin Harting, Kim Kelly Clark, Kelly Southall, Tracy Collinsworth, Sally Stephenson, and Sudie Rogers.
The ABA SO subcommittees, first envisioned in 2022 by then First Lady Jana Gephart, have already implemented ideas that helped enhance our time together in D.C. such as the pre-convention Zoom Q&A. In addition, they have plans now taking shape that will continue to make our group feel even more connected and meaningful. At our meetings in D.C., the various subcommittee Chairs provided updates on their progress, and invited others to sign up to join them. The subcommittees are:
| ABA SO SUBCOMMITTEES | |
| Committee Name | Contact |
| Biography | Robyn Chapman, chair chapman2811@comcast.net |
| Communication | Dee Dee Caneva, co-chair d2caneva@yahoo.com Abby Fansler, co-chair Fansler_Abby@cat.com |
| History | Tracia Austin, co-chair traciaeaustin@aol.com Carol Zeisler, co-chair carolcorcoran@gmail.com |
| Midwest | Dorinda Nance, chair IIIama1989@aol.com |
| New Member | Laura Schofield, chair lwschofield@yahoo.com |
| Outreach/Remembrance | Pat Bianchi, chair beonkey.jp@gmail.com |
| Service | Alisa Carmichael, chair |
If you feel at all inclined, I strongly encourage you to sign up for a committee. It’s a great way to get to know other SOs, form lasting friendships, and make use of your unique skills to improve the SO experience. For more information about the subcommittees or how to learn more about how to get involved, please contact me or any of the committee chairs listed above.
Be watching your inbox for an email in which Robyn Chapman will be inviting you to provide information about yourself to update our collection of SO biographies. For those like myself who provided a biography long ago, this is a great opportunity to update your information. I’m looking forward to doing this via the fun short answer form (Robyn will provide a link to it). However, if you feel inspired to write more about yourself in paragraph form, go for it!
Our Communication Committee co-chairs are working to create a space for a SO webpage within the official ABA website (http://www.americanbandmasters.org/significant-others/). If you have not already done so, please join the ABA Significant Others Facebook page. It’s an excellent way to stay informed on anything you need to know as an ABA SO, it’s a great place to post questions, and you’ll see lots of fun photos from this past convention! As always, big thanks to Robyn Chapman for chronicling our events in photos so thoroughly.
Finally, in an effort to improve communications, please help us make sure the SO email addresses we have are up to date. If you happen to know that someone is not receiving our emails, please let us know.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Warmly,
Nancy
nscolburn@gmail.com
(703) 283-7261
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