New Richmond Arts Hall to induct three

Former New Richmond band director and current Monroe Elementary principal Mark Bailey and Madame Mary Hissim de Moss, a turn of the 20th century opera star who went on to become the highest paid soprano in America, headline the 2010 class of the New Richmond High School Performing Arts Hall of Fame.




Bailey and de Moss will be inducted Tuesday, March 2, during a 7 p.m. concert at the New Richmond High School theatre along with 1993 New Richmond graduate John Harrison, who went on to receive two college degrees in music composition.

Listen to Doug Helfin's comments about the 2010 inductees

“Mark Bailey was an outstanding band director at New Richmond and an outstanding trumpeter,” noted New Richmond High School music director Doug Heflin. “John Harrison has numerous degrees in music composition and his compositions are just outstanding.”

Bailey, who has been principal at Monroe for the past 10 years, is pleased to go into the hall with one of his former students in John Harrison.

“I knew him then as J.J.,” said Bailey. “He was a trumpet player and piano player and a wonderful composer. J.J. had written a song especially for our band his senior year and we performed it at our final awards concert and J.J. got to conduct his song.”

"Mary Hissim de Moss was New Richmond’s Nightingale," notes Robert Lees, owner of New Richmond's Front Street Cafe and president of Historic New Richmond.

de Moss actually lived in Kentucky. Her father was a steamboat captain who built the Tacoma packet boat in New Richmond.

“Her father was a steamboat captain and he would bring Mary and her friends over to New Richmond for school and take them back in the evenings,” said Heflin.

The 1982 cast of West Side Story, a show that is widely considered one of the most difficult shows that a high school can produce, also will be honored at the Hall of Fame concert.