Some of my favorite memories of North Texas are of attending the Demonstration School from kindergarten through graduation, when I (pictured second from right) was kicked upstairs into the music school a year early by our wonderful principal, Dr. Word, who basically told me: "You're over there all the time anyway, you might as well skip your senior year and just go."

The seven of us -- mother, father, grandmother and four children (all of the latter enrolled at North Texas) --lived just around the corner on West Prairie. I could hang a right out my front door, go down the hill past the tennis courts and on to many wonders: college swimming pool, outdoor movie and my exceptional school.

Coming home on winter days with new books under my arm, I was met by my beloved grandmother with hot chocolate and a peanut butter sandwich. Our small house was transformed into a lovely home by my mother.

There was always music in our house. My two sisters were music majors, and my mother a coloratura soprano. What a remarkable fortune for a musical child of the Depression! I'll always be grateful to North Texas for great teaching and performance opportunities, and the fun of touring with fellow students.

Let me not forget the world's best fifth-grade teacher, Phoebe Mizell, who instilled a lifelong passion for literature and beauty into all her students!

After serving as principal harpist in the New Haven and Yale University Symphonies, the Boston Ballet, the Hartford Opera and the Atlanta Choral Guild, I am now reverting to my first loves: the piano and writing. (Read more here.)

Anita Harvey Briggs
('51, '52 M.M.)
Cherry Valley, N.Y.