one spirit one spirit

25 years of CELEBRATING WOMEN AND THEIR MUSIC

WORDS : SARAH MORRAU PHOTOGRAPHY : Provided by CELEBRATION OF WOMEN AND THEIR MUSIC

Deb Jenkins

has spent more than a third of her life pouring her heart and soul into the Annual Celebration of Women and Their Music.

Jenkins is at a place in her life where she is ready to step away from the show. At the age of 70 and as a breast cancer survivor, she is grateful to be here. She would like time to go camping with her husband Mike, travel and spend time with her adult children and grandkids.

Jenkins notes, “This event is a year-round, 24/7 job, and I was 100% willing to do what it took to make the show happen, and turn out well.”

“I am ready now to start some new adventures because I don’t think I’m going to get any younger,” she says.

Enormously grateful to the number of volunteers — including the board, core group members and countless others — Jenkins credits those behind the scenes as well as the community for the show’s longevity.

“We as a board meet monthly, year-round, to plan and sort out details, and we have such a great team of people working for the same vision,” she says.

Jenkins adds, “We work hard at keeping the show relevant in people’s minds, for example by hosting house concerts throughout the year, along with interviews, articles and word of mouth.”

Fulfilling the show’s mission brings Jenkins great joy. With a focus on mentoring and providing support to young women in the arts, the show has, to date, presented monetary awards to 127 female high school students, with amounts ranging from $250 to $1,000.

There is also an endowment fund through the FM Area Foundation that awards scholarships for higher education.

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As a mentor and accomplished musician herself, Jenkins encourages artists to consider that they don’t have to complete with each other, that we are all unique, and bring our own unique perspective to our art, in whatever form that may be.

This is beautifully stated throughout the theme song for the show, “One Spirit,” written by board and core member and singer/songwriter, Nita Velo. Each year Jenkins sings the same lines from the One Spirit Song, “We are many different parts, gifts abound with every heart, we are equal, we are strong, one body blessed by God.”

For many people it is also the theme song, written by Velo, that captures the heart of the Celebration of Women. The song closes the show each year, performed by the same key singers and the performers from the show group and accompanied by talented percussionists.

Velo explaines that the song is inspired by a bible verse in Corinthians that speaks of many different kinds of spiritual gifts, but all are from the same spirit.

The song began with the opening line that came to her, “I have one hand.”

Velo had recorded just that line and shared it with her friend. He laughed at her, and she told him, “That’s going to be a great song!”

When it came time to record the song, Velo says Roger Gress came in to play percussion and it added a lot. His idea for a beat with a native American style of rhythm really made the song, she says.

For Velo, the show is the only time her song “One Spirit” comes to life. She greatly admires Jenkins and her love of music and community: “To pour into this show and give back through those awards — she has influenced and inspired so many. When you think of the show, it’s Deb.”

This year the show welcomes back the beloved Margie Bailey, former director of the Fargo Theatre, as co-emcee with Jenkins. Bailey says she’s loved the concept for this annual celebration since Jenkins first presented it to her in her office at the Fargo Theatre in the fall of 1997.

Thrilled and honored to reprise her role as an emcee of the show, Bailey says in previous years as emcee she was given the freedom to express her passion for the mission of the celebration. Bailey says she did this by “wearing zany costumes and singing songs from musicals with rewritten words that addressed my astonishment at current political and social agendas.”

Appreciative of how the show has evolved over the years by retaining a core team of women with an increasing number of emerging talented performers, Bailey says, “Every year the evening leaves the audience with a sense of gratitude for the wealth of talented women in our community.”

Honored by the community support of the show, Jenkins says, “The amount of people in this area who have wanted to support the show and its mission continues to amaze me.”

Jenkins is especially proud that the Celebration of Women has stayed true to its mission:

“To recognize artistic passion in women and create opportunities for emerging and established artists by opening avenues for networking, mentoring, support and promotion of their individual talents.”

For Jenkins, the performers, volunteers and award winners, it is the relationships and encouragement that have deeply impacted and continue to influence so many over the years.

Although Jenkins is hanging up her hat with the show, she is open to the possibility and hope that another dreamer or visionary may pick up the baton and continue the Annual Celebration of Women and Their Music.

“Twenty-five years is an amazing feat to have continued doing this wonderful nonprofit. I’ve beyond met the expectations that I have had for following my dream,” Jenkins says.