Vikings take on Whitefield in Smyrna tonight. Page 15. FRIDAY October 8, 2010
The
Saga
Softball a huge part of Luci Allen’s life. Page 14.
First Presbyterian Day School, Macon, Georgia
Fine Arts building set for makeover By COLBY WATSON Staff Writer
Victoria Vanhuss/The Saga First-year English teacher Belinda Yu is also an accomplished violinist who performed with the Boston Civic Symphony. Below, she performs “Happy birthday” for one of her students.
Daring to Dream English teacher Belinda Yu has a history of pursuing her passions. By ZACH SHEALY Co-Editor She was living out her dreams in Boston. Three years earlier, a young Belinda Yu had wedged her violin into the backseat of her car and began the long drive from her parents’ home in Florida to Boston. She knew no one in the city. All she had was a willingness to take a step of faith and the name of a teacher she wanted to study under. Now, after working to establish herself in Boston’s professional music scene, Yu was playing in the Boston Civic Symphony, performing chamber music recitals and teaching private lessons on the side. She had achieved what most classical musicians only ever dream of: a career. Then it all came crashing down. One fateful evening, as Yu rigorously
practiced for an upcoming solo performance at the Longy School of Music, the unthinkable happened. A perfectionist, she had been practicing one of Bach’s solo sonatas for three hours straight, forgoing any kind of rest or break. Then, in a tragic freak accident, Yu severely cramped the muscles in her wrist. Just like that, her music career was over. Her life almost immediately changed direction. Yu moved to California and got her master’s degree in journalism in one year, then moved to Wisconsin for an internship with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Next, she signed on with CNN as a video journalist. During all this, however, she developed a passion for something entirely different from journalism and music: teaching. She had taught sporadically through the years. In Atlanta she tutored kids in English as well as violin. She had actually majored in English at Duke for her undergraduate degree, with a minor in music. After a year teaching the orchestra at a school in Atlanta, Yu once again set out to a place she had never been: a small town called Macon; more specifically, a small, private, Christian school called First Presbyterian Day School.
Please see DREAM, page 13
With the chorus program forced into the lecture hall, art and music classes scattered throughout campus and no real rehearsal room for the dance team, plans are in the works to address these needs. Fine arts director Andrew Strickland has high hopes to start breaking ground on an expansion of the fine arts building by the beginning of next fall. “The need is huge,” Strickland said. “We can’t just stand aside and hope it’ll come soon.” “It’s probably going to be done in two phases,” he continued. “The start of the plan would be to make sure we had rooms for the things we desperately need.” This would include things like a new elementary music room, a place for chorus to gather, a rehearsal room for the dance team and a new and bigger art room. “The first phase is for using what we immediately need, and then as the building expands it will start to do some improvement of the area we have right now but could also really use some expansion,” Strickland said. “Exactly what the building will look like is still very much in planning stages right now,” Strickland said, “but we know it is going to house all of these fine arts programs that don’t currently have a home and that it will ultimately become a space to support what we already have.” Strickland said the cost of the expansion is going to be considerable. Many private donations already have been sent, Strickland said. “We’re creeping up to having enough to break ground,” he said. “There’s already been a lot of interest and initial support. I don’t know what the current number is now but it’s high.” The planned expansion should only enhance the overall fine arts program, Strickland said. “I can’t see it not improving,” he said. “The arts are growing so well, even in our current limitations, that it is a very exciting thought what we’re going to see once some of those limitations are gone.” One teacher who is particularly excited about the expansion plan is Lydia Gray, Spanish teacher and head coach of FPD’s dance team. “Right now the dance practices are either outside or on the brick floor in the fine arts lobby,” she said. “It‘ll be completely revolutionizing for the team to have a place that has the surface we need but will also have a location where we can close the door and not have distractions around.”
Please see MAKEOVER, page 13