CONSERVATORY: Music to these ears

Ms. Zoe Ann Thruman:

It is with great pleasure that I write this endorsement for our forthcoming Music Conservatory. There are a few high points to my almost four years as one of your county commissioners, and witnessing the purchase of the Hamilton House for a desperately needed cultural enhancement in Coeur d’Alene is certainly one.

As I have shared with you, Zoe Ann, Julienne Dance, Deb Mitchell and others, music holds a special piece of my heart in that it saved my family from the Bolsheviks in 1922.

My uncle Nick, my mom’s oldest brother and my grandparents’ firstborn, learned the violin at a very young age, and thanks to my grandfather’s persistence that one of his children — nine in all, three died young — would be a musician, was able to convince the Bolsheviks that unless they be allowed to return to their native Greece, this aspiring musical talent would be lost. They agreed, and today we live free!

Life has an uncanny way of presenting us with reflections of what might have been and yet showing us what can be, with a dream, and the ensuing tenacity. You and your dedicated associates never gave up, and now the road is open to you to raise the bar in our community by creating an incubator for aspiring musicians. I look forward to a smashing success and the eventual pride of the Inland Northwest!

CHRIS FILLIOS

County Commissioner