The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra-Parkersburg is losing a couple who have helped to make it a successful organization.
Lanie Covey, chairman of the WVSO-P Board of Directors for the past 17 years and a board member for 22 years, told the audience at Sunday's symphony performance at Blennerhassett School auditorium she was resigning.
Covey and her husband, John, who has served as the local symphony's information technology guru and performed other duties, plan to spend several months touring the West, Upper Midwest and Northeast in their 42-foot motor home, before spending the winter in Fort Myers, Fla.
The Coveys are selling their North Hills house and plan to head west in June.
Lanie said she has loved being associated with the symphony orchestra and the volunteers who help to make it thrive. "Good people are involved," she said.
Mary Ann Osborne of Parkersburg, a WVSO-P board member the past three years, is succeeding Covey as chairman. Osborne said she is impressed by the symphony board, the grant writers and the creative talent of Maestro Grant Cooper.
Covey said highlights of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra-Parkersburg are the orchestral programs brought to children in Wood and Washington county schools each year, the five-program symphony series of classical and pops music presented at Blennerhassett School and the strong financial shape of WVSO-P.
Providing financial support for the WVSO-P is the West Virginia Symphony League of Parkersburg, which played host to a dinner with Cooper at the Blennerhassett Hotel Sunday after the symphony performance of "Rhythm and Romance" with piano soloist Katie Mahan.
Kiki Angelos and other members of the symphony league filled the Blennerhassett Hotel ballroom with red roses and petals and red chocolate roses for the "Romance is in the Air" dinner. The symphony league presented Covey with a vase of red roses and told her how important she had been to the symphony orchestra, Angelos said.
On Thursday, the symphony board gave the Coveys gasoline gift cards for their cross-country travels. David Gross of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra board in Charleston gave Lanie a stained-glass plate with the orchestra's logo on it.
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Jim Mushrush has moved here from Peoria, Ill., to open Mushrush's Restaurant & Pub at 1415 Garfield Ave. in Parkersburg (across from the Golden Corral). The opening is set for May 25 in the building that has housed two other restaurants. Mushrush, an Arkansas native, is married to Parkersburg native Tamela "Tami" (Sams) Mushrush. Both have worked for URS Corp. at Caterpillar Inc. in East Peoria - he as a maintenance manager and she as a safety manager. Jim said he has worked in the restaurant business since 1977, starting at a Sonic in Oklahoma, owning Mushrush's in Lake Wylie, S.C., and most recently owning Mushrush's Irish pub in Peoria. Jim plans to offer Southern-style cooking, including chicken cooked in a cast-iron skillet. He describes himself as a "people person" who believes a restaurant should serve quality food and offer good service. "I will be in the kitchen," Jim said.
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Wood County Sheriff Jeff Sandy kicked off his fall re-election campaign with a fundraiser Thursday evening at Bob and Millie Bennett's home in Vienna. More than 100 people attended the outdoor event, Bob Bennett said. Millie prepared a bean soup from a recipe she and Bob obtained from Peggy Sue's '50s Diner near San Bernardino, Calif., on a trip in March. Helping the Bennetts at the Sandy dinner/fundraiser were Buddy and Nancy James, Stephanie Parsons, Phyllis Monroe, Paul and Barb Yeater, Bill and Judy Ogden, Bob Kieffer and Anita Burdette.
Contact Paul LaPann at plapann@newsandsentinel.com
