Abilene Philharmonic’s anniversary ball to feature Ackers as grand dame Modern Music

Abilene Philharmonic’s anniversary ball to feature Ackers as grand dame

Written by Leah Gillies on January 27, 2011 – 7:30 pm

If you go

What: Abilene Philharmonic Guild Gold Medallion Ball

Where: Abilene Civic Center

When: Feb. 5.

Time: 6:30 p.m. reception for major donors; ball begins at 7:30.

Tickets: $200 per couple, individual tickets available.

Contact: Molly Cline at 672-8033.

Thomas Metthe/Reporter-News Roy Helen Ackers is the grand dame of this year’s Abilene Philharmonic anniversary ball.

In her work promoting the Abilene Philharmonic, Roy Helen Ackers is proof that style can accompany substance.

Anyone who’s met her knows about her flair for vibrant costumes. Her eccentric collection of hats alone makes her a magnet for attention whenever she steps into a room.

But if Ackers, 89, were only about flash, her fellow Philharmonic Guild members wouldn’t talk about her in the same reverent tones.

“She’s been a tireless advocate for symphonic music and making it available in the community,” says Mary Cooksey, Guild president. “She’s West Texas through and through.”

It’s fitting that Ackers, who has had some level of involvement in the Philharmonic since its beginning, is serving as the “grand dame” for the Guild’s Gold Medallion Ball on Feb. 5. The event celebrates 60 years of the Abilene Philharmonic and 50-plus years of the Guild that has supported it.

That’s a lot of milestones for an organization that never seemed a likely fit for West Texas.

Ackers remembers the idea starting small. She and a group of young ladies who called themselves the Bluebonnet Girls would make regular trips to Camp Barkeley, the World War II precursor to Dyess Air Force Base.

During social dances with the troops, Ackers and the others would hear a familiar set of grumbles from the culture-loving East Coast trainees. Why didn’t Abilene have an orchestra?

That struck Ackers and others as a good question to ask. Texas, as she says today, was “culturally dry.”

It took several years and a lot of group lifting to bring an orchestra to Abilene. By the time the Philharmonic debuted Dec. 2, 1950, no fewer than 50 people were listed in the program as members of the Philharmonic board of directors.

One of those people was Bro Mingus, Ackers’ first husband.

Conducted by music director Jay Dietzer, that first concert aimed high. There were selections from Beethoven, Schubert and Wagner on the list.

The local orchestra went through many iterations after that. Its fortunes were often tied to those of the regional oil industry.

“The oil families were big contributors in both taste and finance,” Ackers says.

Ackers was with the organization through both boom and bust, serving at first on the periphery with various committees. But in the past 20 years, she has taken on a more prominent role in the Philharmonic Guild.

In 1992, she chaired the Philharmonic Guild’s Peacock Ball. It picked up its name from the fact that her second husband, Dale Ackers, was the owner of the local NBC affiliate.

The grand dame honor this year is another nice feather in her cap, but it also carries renewed responsibilities. Ackers will be the standard-bearer for sponsorship development over the next year.

Given her infectious enthusiasm for the arts, it seems like a natural fit.

“Culture is contagious,” Ackers says.

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