Celebration of the first 75 years of Pineville’s Martin Library brings to mind one of my newspaper life’s biggest surprises.

The library began with an endowment by her children to honor Mildred Martin, as in Roy O Martin.

Mildred “Virginia” Martin Howard was one of the children and the surprise in this look back.

When the receptionist rang to say Mrs. Martin was at The Town Talk front desk to see me it meant one of three things.

She thought we were guilty, again, of butchering some part of the King’s English, a music project needed deserved recognition, or something new was happening at the library and deserved our attention.

Mrs. Howard was culture personified, manners ingrained and as persuasive as a Philadelphia lawyer. (And it didn’t hurt she had the, in these parts, legendary family name.)

Yet her causes carried their own weight, though we often disagreed on her grammar challenges.

She felt libraries held the nation’s future, challenging young minds to read and learn life beyond their neighborhoods, and worried reading was taking a backseat in kids’ lives.

Actually she was persuasive enough to get me involved with a gang of 5th graders in the Reading Is Fundamental program in Rapides schools. (Gosh, those kids are now in their 60s).

But Mrs. Howard was most widely known for her music skills, as a teacher, at the keys, or directing choirs.

Compositions on the classical and religious scores were her normal fare.

And so we come to a night in the 1970’s, an after-party celebrating the final rehearsal of that year’s Press Club Gridiron Show. The annual sold-out event spoofing all manner of public figures and fiascos raised scholarship funds for area students planning to study journalism and communications.

The party was at Dooley and Tiz Nunnally’s Cherokee Village place. Tiz was the Gridiron pianist so many years that she was eventually named an honorary Press Club member.

After a periodic of finger food and banter back and forth someone of course urged Tiz to hit the 88 so we all could get more much-needed singing practice.

She approached the piano and from another room came Virginia Howard, a substitution beyond expectation.
In her perfectly tailored outfit she sat and we prepared for a downer.

Then she brought forth Scott Joplin, whose ragtime was enjoying new popularity thanks to a fairly recent Newman-Redford movie “The Sting.” (If you don’t know the music, go to YouTube; too bad the Gridiron productions didn’t end up there.)

Flabbergasted describes her audience. Then out came Ham and Hambone, more widely known as Bill Carter, Town Talk sports editor, and Bill Lynch, KALB TV executive and Gridiron director, with a soft shoe routine.

The prearranged activity closed with Mrs. Howard reminding us that music and a good laugh benefit everyone.

Perhaps as true today as then.

A footnote: The Virginia M. Howard Foundation since 2013 has awarded grants totaling about $500,000 annually to programs in Central Louisiana, including the Alexandria Museum of Art and Hope House, and other areas.