Valerie (Naegel) Beckett (Class of 1982) and Clark Wheeler (Class of 2004), who set the bar high
for future New Richmond High School music
students, and the cast of the 1997 musical production ‘The Dream Master’ will be inducted into
the New Richmond High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame on March 19.
They
will be honored at a reception at 5:30 p.m. on March 19 followed by the annual
Hall of Fame concert and inductions at 7 p.m. in the high school theater.
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| Valerie Beckett |
“These
are wonderful selections for me because I had a personal relationship with
these people,” noted New Richmond music director Doug Heflin. “Valerie was the first freshman ever to earn a
choral music letter at New Richmond. And Clark Wheeler’s high school music
ability was off the scale.”
Beckett,
who is now an instructional aide at New Richmond Elementary, made her mark on
the piano which she played in the orchestra for New Richmond’s productions of South Pacific, Oklahoma and West Side Story.
“The
list of people she has accompanied is enormous,” said Heflin. “Everything from
playing the piano in a high school musical to taking kids to the college
audition, Valerie has been an amazing musician.”
“I was a
stay-at-home mom for 22 years (sons Nick and Blake Beckett followed her
footsteps as members of the school’s Troubadours group) and during those years
I gave piano lessons,” said Beckett. “At one point I had 30 students. The piano
takes me to a place I enjoy. I can sit at the piano and play and forget any
problems. When my new piano was delivered, I played until my arms hurt.”
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| 2004 New Richmond High School graduate Clark Wheeler spent 16 months in the Kalahari Desert on three trips to Southern Africa studying and recording music of the Bushmen of the Kalahari for his albums When We Were Free: Bushman Music of Botswana and Revolutions of Spirit: Bushman Dance. |
“Clark
Wheeler took Advanced Music Theory at the College Conservatory of Music as a
high school sophomore and had a perfect score on the AP Music Theory test,”
said Heflin. “Any time he comes back to school and shares his musical talents
with us is a great joy.”
As a
junior, Wheeler’s composition, ‘Harpstrings’
was performed by the Troubadours.
“That
was a special experience and I am very grateful to Mr. Heflin for having an
openness and enthusiasm towards such unique things in his music programs,” said
Wheeler.
Wheeler’s life since high school would make a
good feature for the National Geographic. He has spent 16 months alone in the
Kalahari Desert in southern Africa studying and recording the complex
traditional music of the Bushmen (San) people and has published two albums from
his recordings: When We Were Free:
Bushman Music of Botswana and Revolutions
of Spirit: Bushman Dance. All proceeds go to the Bushman musicians. The
albums are available at www.bushmanmusic.org.
“Beyond
this, I have continued to expand and hone my musical capacities and have
performed in various types of bands and as a solo guitarist/singer,” said
Wheeler, who will spend a year in China teaching English at a Chinese school.
The Dream Master was a 1997 production that went
from idea to live performance in 10 days.
“Due to a
personnel change at our high school we got to the point where there wasn’t going
to be a musical production that school year,” said Heflin. “My college roommate
(Mark Britt) and I had worked on a musical called ‘The Dream Master’ in college
and between us we came up with the final libretto and the music and passed it
out on a Monday and on the 10th day we performed it in front of an
audience.”
