President’s Concert to honor Mae Whipple 
Henderson State University’s Department of Music will honor Mae Whipple posthumously at its annual President’s Concert at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4 in the Russell Fine Arts Harwood Recital Hall. The program features student soloists selected as winners of a competition in November.
Whipple was a member of the Henderson faculty for 45 years, and her contributions are far-reaching. She began teaching piano, harmony, and public school music at Henderson-Brown College in 1929. She progressed with the college as it became a publicly supported institution and renamed Henderson State Teachers College in 1930.
Whipple earned both a bachelor of arts degree and a bachelor of music degree from Henderson in the late 1920s. She studied at Chicago Musical College and Julliard, and earned a master of music degree from Gunn School of Music and a master of arts degree from Columbia University.
Whipple served on Henderson’s first entertainment committee appointed by President J.P. Womack to directly supervise college-sponsored dances. Henderson’s music department sponsored three other organizations, one of which was the Henderson chapter of Music Educators National Conference organized on campus in 1960. The club sponsored several social events each year and met annually at Whipple’s home.
The Mae Whipple Endowment Scholarship is awarded annually to a Henderson student who “best exemplifies” Whipple’s dedication to the arts and her lifelong commitment to learning.
Past President’s Concert honorees include: Charles and Anita Cabe, Glen Jones, Bobby Jones, Dr. Charles Welch, Dr. Charles Dunn, Dr. John G. Hall, the Board of Trustees, Betty Bruner, Eugene Kuyper, Jesse Branch, Paul Barringer, Mary Ella Clark, Dr. Maralyn Sommer, Diamond Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Ross Foundation and Southern Bancorp.
Soloists for the concert are: Bobby Humphries, a percussionist from Everton, who will perform a marimba transcription of the Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso; Casey Williams, a tenor from Malvern, will perform “Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore; Hunter Mabery, a pianist from Murfreesboro, will perform the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor; Kenneth Harris, a tubist from Texarkana, Texas, will perform a transcription of Capuzzi’s Concerto for Double Bass; and Aaron Schaefer, a tubist from Navasota, Texas, will perform The Carnival of Venice.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dr. Steven Becraft at 230-5412 or becrafs@hsu.edu.