Abstract
In this 2012 interview, Annette Sutherland describes her childhood living in Shaker Heights. Being one of the first students to volunteer to integrate Moreland School in Shaker in 1971, she grew up with a very open mind. She tells stories of activities she did as a child, involving Horseshoe Lake, Thornton Park, and Shaker Square, among others. As the current president of the school board, the importance of education, diversity, and tolerance are many recurring themes in her talk. She finishes with describing some of the current problems with Shaker Heights schools and neighborhoods, which she believes is a national problem as well as a local one.
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Interviewee
Sutherland, Annette Tucker (Interviewee)
Interviewer
Halligan-Taylor, Gabriella (interviewer)
Project
Shaker Heights Centennial
Date
6-12-2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
55 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Annette Tucker Sutherland interview, 12 June 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 915012.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/504
Transcript
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:00] Okay, first, go ahead and tell me your name.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:04] My name is Annette Tucker Sutherland.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:06] And where did you grow up?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:10] I grew up in Shaker Heights. My family moved here when I was entering first grade in 1964. Prior to that, we had lived briefly in East Cleveland when my father was a graduate student at Case, but we moved here from Philadelphia.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:00:26] Wow. You guy came a long way. What area in Shaker did you live?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:00:33] I grew up on Aberdeen until I was about, until I was finishing eighth grade. So approximately 1972–73, we moved to Torrington Road, and my parents stayed there for another 20 years. Then I lived away for 12 years, including college and graduate school and the beginning of my career. I moved back to Shaker Heights in 1989 and lived on Daleford Road, south of Chagrin. And now I live on Aldersyde. So I’ve lived in at least four different houses in Shaker Heights.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:09] Wow. Kind of all around the neighborhood. So, what was it like growing up in shaker in the ’60s?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:19] I enjoyed it. Obviously it was home because I came back. But I can I sort of freeform and just-
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:29] Oh, yeah, you can just go ahead.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:31] Okay.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:01:31] These are just base questions.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:01:33] My parents chose Shaker in 1964 because the realtors told them that if they cared, if their number one priority was public schools, they should look in Shaker Heights. And at that time, there was some turmoil in Shaker because of integration and the number of Black families who were seeking homes in Shaker. A Black family had just bought a house on Aberdeen, and my mother said that the neighbors were very pleased that white buyers were still interested in that street even though integration had begun there. They had some neighbors who we became aware as we were growing up, were very opposed to integration and moved away relatively quickly. But we were very comfortable with it. My parents had lived in Ghana, and I was actually born there when my father was teaching at a university there. And they felt as part of their faith that integration and that kind of outreach was really, really important. Plus, they’d had plenty of experience living with and interacting with people of other skin colors, and that did not make them uncomfortable. And I think that they were pleased that Shaker was going to be integrated because we sought more opportunities to have those experiences. For example, when I was growing up, my parents belonged to an inner-city church. We went down to 79th and Euclid to attend Calvary Presbyterian Church. And at that time, the church was kind of in transition. When it first was built, the Euclid Avenue millionaires were members. And at the time that we were members in the ’60s, most of the white members were from the Heights area, but they had a lot of outreach programs. Like Head Start was there. They started a housing corporation to help people with housing issues. So they were very active in the neighborhood. And the congregation was very mixed. And I grew up with that, very comfortable with that. And then when I was in fifth grade, confronted by increasing segregation of neighborhoods and home buying patterns, the schools decided to enter into a voluntary busing desegregation program. And friends of my parents, who, like them, were very involved in churches in this area, made a special outreach on the grounds of Christian faith and Christian principles. And my parents asked me if I would be willing to switch from Onaway school to Moreland School, which was in a predominantly Black neighborhood. And I was fine with that. I can’t remember if I just said okay or if I was excited about it, but it seemed very, I think I was excited. I was ready for a change. And a lot of really nice white kids were in my group of people who voluntarily switched. And it was a bit of a culture shock because some of the black kids were into music and had different family experiences than I was used to. But it worked very well. It was a great class. I had a wonderful teacher, and it was a great experience. Sixth grade was a highlight for me, and my younger siblings also switched schools eventually. I can’t remember if we all came over at once, but it was a family. I was one of four siblings, and we all participated in some way in the voluntary busing program.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:19] And you were the oldest?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:21] I was the oldest of four. Right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:22] So that would have been ’69 then?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:24] I think it was ’69. I think it was actually ’70, ’71. Because I think my brother was born in ’71 when I was finishing sixth grade. Something like, I think that’s right.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:05:39] Tell me more about kind of the school experiences there. So you got there in sixth grade, so that’s junior high. Did you continue in that area for high school?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:05:48] Actually, at the time, Shaker schools were K through 6 in 9 different elementary school buildings. And that’s all been changed and reconfigured with smaller families and a slight decline in population in Shaker Heights. So I only had one year in the Moreland building. And then I went to the junior high that both Onaway and Moreland fed into. And at the time, Shaker had two junior highs that were grade six through nine. The other junior high was Byron. Woodbury had more black students, but at the time, I didn’t care. It wasn’t really something that I thought about. And you know, those things are controversial now. Well, I shouldn’t say those things. I support the decision of the district several years ago to reconfigure the buildings so that everybody is in the same building for grades 5 and 6 and then for grades 7 and 8, because there was a strong rivalry and there were feelings of us versus them between the two junior high schools at the time. And I think that intensified with some of the demographic changes that occurred in Shaker. So I think it was a good thing to put us all together in the same building, put all the students together in the same building before high school. And so now Woodbury is grades five through six for the entire district. And what used to be Byron Junior High School is now grade 7 and 8 or the Shaker Middle School for all the district. Growing up in Shaker, it was great. I thought, I always loved school. I had a number of great teachers. I had some who weren’t so great, but I think that’s just a normal part of any school experience, no matter public or private, no matter the community. I had some struggles in grades five and maybe other grades with some bullying and some negative peer issues. And again, I think that’s a very normal part of growing up. I thought at the time that I was getting a wonderful education, and I sought it for my own children when time to make that choice.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:08:27] Is that why you came back to Shaker? Because of the education?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:08:29] It was that and the fact that when my husband and I were looking for homes, he - when we married - he owned a house in University Heights, and he had grown up in all parochial schools all the way. So we weren’t sure what between us we were going to decide for our children. But I, the first thing that was a deciding factor for us was that Shaker was still enforcing very strong zoning regulations, and the quality of housing in Shaker was superior to anything that we looked at in Cleveland Heights. But I also was convinced that the Shaker schools were strong and that we would have a good choice if we were inclined to use public schools when our kids were old enough. When we moved here, we didn’t have any children yet.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:09:17] Right. Do you think kind of the history of Shaker schools is kind of led through to the future?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:09:25] Oh, absolutely. I just did some research on this. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m president of the school board. Okay. So I just gave a speech at commencement, and I struggled for weeks with what was the theme of my speech going to be. And I ended up settling on the Centennial. So I did a little bit of research on the history of the schools and went back to the North Union Society of the Shakers that had lived here prior to the Van Sweringen development. So I was excited to find out that the Shakers were very strong, of course, in the way they supported school. And I read that they built a school building in 1848 that was considered state of the art. And they were very enlightened about including music and natural history and a number of demanding subjects in their school program. And then I was excited to read that when Shaker schools began with the incorporation of the village in 1912, within five years they determined that college was essential and that every student from Shaker would be encouraged to go on to college and they would only hire teachers with college educations. So that was very, that was unique for the time. It was. And I think that set the theme for what Shaker is today and what we hope it will continue to be in the future.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:10:56] What exactly, you know, back in the ’60s and ’70s, and even now, Shaker schools is still very regarded. What set it apart back then? What sets it apart now? Is it the same? Is it different?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:11:09] Well, I remember when I was growing up, I thought that Shaker schools were probably superior to anything around us, with the possible exception of Cleveland Heights. We were very proud of sending a lot of students to Ivy League schools, sending a lot of students to college, having a lot of National Merit Scholars semifinalists. There was no one in the area who had the kinds of awards and bragging rights, let’s say, things genuine highlights for student achievement that they could point out. And yet I thought that Shaker was a little too, not integrated enough. I actually thought that Cleveland Heights was more diverse. And I thought when I was growing up that maybe I would eventually settle in Cleveland Heights for that reason, that I thought it was more diverse. Both communities have changed quite a bit since the ’70s. And I think Shaker has become more diverse in many good ways. Of course, we struggle with the poverty issue, but in terms of people’s backgrounds and nationalities and people coming from all over the globe, I think it’s a very interesting community. And I love that about Shaker Heights. In terms of the school system. I think a lot of other communities worked hard to offer competitive curriculum to encourage their students to go on to college. And so there are other communities that now have similar, let’s say, bragging rights in terms of student achievement and student futures. But I continue to hear from people in other communities that the lack of diversity is a real problem for their students, their children. That their kids do not know how to deal with people different from them. That they grow up in a bubble and they’re not as cosmopolitan or ready to deal with the real world as Shaker students can be. And also that sometimes they are so coddled that when they leave home and their own community and they go off to college, they can’t manage their own time. They can’t manage all the challenges of temptations. Time management. Okay, I already mentioned time management. So I continue to feel that we offer a really strong program, not just curriculum, but life skills. And I think that’s essential. And over and over again, I ask myself, am I making the right choice for my children?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:14:08] And I come back to feeling that, yeah, they are really prepared to deal with life. And part of that is being confronted with people who are really different from them in the neighborhood and in the schools.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:25] Being tolerant in their ways.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:14:27] Being tolerant, being sure of who they are and what their values are. Understanding that people different from them are not threatening or all negative, completely undesirable. Understanding how to get along with people like that, how to work with them, how to relate to them, how to just be friendly without being best friends if they. If there aren’t enough common points for a deeper friendship. And I think that’s really important.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:14:59] Right, right.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:15:03] I know I tend to be soft spoken. Oh, no, that’s okay.
[GHT readjusts recording microphone]
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:15:13] With the diversity of Shaker. I mean, obviously racial, you know, just with the history of the integration in the ’60s and even before that in ’56, do you think, does religious diversity help with that? Does cultural diversity, class diversity? How does that help the education system?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:15:40] I think that it’s extremely important to understand why things happen, why people behave the way they do. Why, to have a rounded perspective on why is our society the way it is. Why does government operate the way it does? Why are there certain patterns of human behavior? And to have a tolerance and an ability to move forward with people who are not just like you. And I think that all of that comes into play when those kids are together in the classroom or on the playground. And there’s no substitute. You can’t just talk about it. These kids live it. So I think that’s something that we don’t even realize we’re modeling. I mean, I’ve heard people say that teachers don’t always understand how much of what they’re teaching is not only the content, but who they are as people and as leaders, as classroom managers, that sort of thing. And it’s the same thing about your peers I think. I have one friend who I met because our kids were in kindergarten together, and she’s lived out of her car. She’s been homeless. She had an abusive husband who was ordered to pay child support when they divorced, who never paid her any child support. And we have kept in touch through the years, even though she keeps moving. And she’s told me over and over again how much she learned from me because I would say and do things that I didn’t even realize were modeling something that no one else in her life had ever modeled for her. And I’ve learned a lot from her, too. She’s a wonderful mother. She’s very intuitive about people. She is the rare person who can go outside of the way she was raised and her family culture and look for something different that might be better. And I’ve learned a tremendous amount from her about courage, about making new friends. And I value her friendship. But she illustrates for me the ways in which peer influence can be a learning experience and an important factor in shaping your worldview and your community that I might not have noticed otherwise.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:18:24] Right. Board of Education. How did you kind of, how did you get involved with that? You obviously had a passion, at a very young age for education and schooling, but how did you decide to kind of make that a career and come to Shaker?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:18:37] Well, I wouldn’t call it a career. The first time I moved back to Shaker In ’89, my sister and I bought a two-family house together, and that was the Delford Road south of Chagrin situation. And then when I married, I moved to University Heights, and then we needed a bigger house. We came back to Shaker, and I was an attorney working downtown. And Shaker was halfway between my husband’s job in Wickliffe and my job downtown. So I had a career that had nothing to do with the school board. The way I got involved in the school board is I wanted to be more involved in the community and I got involved in the Shaker League of Women Voters in part because they send observers to all public meetings and they put together a newsletter. And if you read that, you’re really pretty well informed about things that are happening in the community. And about that same time, I started paying more attention to what was going on in the schools because I was reading in the newspaper about children in Shaker schools who were not passing state proficiency tests. And I was very concerned about that. I didn’t understand how that could be possible. Once you become a parent and you see the range of what skills the kids bring to school and the range of parenting styles and family challenges. You really understand why there are some kids who are not doing well on those tests. But before my kids got into the schools, I was wondering. So I started going to school board meetings every now and then just to observe and to see if I could figure out what was going on. And the league, gosh, I’m trying to remember. First, I helped edit the newsletter, and I did that because before I went to law school, I was a newspaper paper editor and reporter. And that was a natural fit for me to help with a newsletter for the league. And then they tapped me to participate in two studies that the league did of school issues. One was a school levy for operating funds, and the other was a bond issue for capital needs. So I served with a group of other league members where we interviewed school, school officials, administrators. We looked at financial records, we looked at the need of the buildings for capital upgrades and maintenance, and we reported back to league members on whether we would recommend that the league support those ballot initiatives put on the ballot by the schools. In both cases, we did. And so through those activities, I became very aware of who were the leaders in Shaker and what their skill sets were and what kinds of, and what they thought the challenges and priorities were. And I wanted to be as involved as possible for the future of schools for my own children and my neighbors. I wanted my children to have a really good education. I wanted the school system and the communities still be strong when my children have children. And I thought that I could make a difference by getting involved to the point of serving on the school board. So eventually, eventually I ran. For a long time I didn’t think I would want to do it as a candidate, as a political activity. I still don’t enjoy that part of it, but I do very much enjoy being very involved. And all the research, all the conversations, all the meetings where I learn more about what’s happening with parents, with students, with the community, and trying to bring that back to good policymaking for the district.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:22:32] I gotta backtrack a little bit kind of on the broader spectrum of things. When you were growing up in Shaker, were you aware of kind of the history of Shaker? Did you have any idea about the Van Sweringens or?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:22:50] Oh, yeah. I remember studying it in third grade. I think the third graders in Shaker still study the history of their community, and they go back to, I don’t remember going back to Native Americans, but we definitely went back to the Shaker religious group. And the city’s, a little bit of the city’s history. I would hope They’re a little stronger in that now that the centennial’s around and everybody’s digging out more historical information about that part of the community’s history. Trying to think what I knew. I mean, everybody knew where the Van Sweringens had lived across from Horseshoe Lake. I think I was vaguely aware that the Van Sweringens did not want- That they- That they planned a community that would have different ranges of housing values so that people could live here through different, different stages of their own professional careers and their economic abilities. I don’t know that I was aware of the early discrimination against anybody who wasn’t a WASP. I don’t remember being aware of that. And we knew so many African American families who lived in Shaker. I’m not sure I was very aware that the Van Sweringens tried to prevent that, but I might have been. To me, that was, you know, I guess to me maybe that was ancient history. And to other people it was still a very real ongoing conflict. And I’ll give you another example of my attitudes there. When I went to Duke University. And I remember being absolutely shocked that people there would hang Dixie flags from their dorm windows, as if this was a mark of pride, because I thought that was ancient history and a mark of shame and a sign of racism. And I was shocked. So probably my worldview was a little different from a lot of other people growing up here.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:09] Was that, did you experience any discrimination by your peers when you went to college?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:25:14] At Duke? I did, yes.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:25:19] Did you receive any discrimination for being a pro-integration supporter?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:25:27] I don’t think there was anybody African American in my dorm. I remember feeling uncomfortable with the fact that there were so few African Americans on campus. My roommate happened to be Korean, of Korean heritage. She was raised in the States, but actually didn’t speak any English until she started kindergarten in the public schools in Virginia. And she and I used to hang around with the international students a lot. And so I sought ethnic diversity there. And I ended up with the beat on the college newspaper of race relations simply because I tended to be drawn to these stories. And I just, it just happened. And so I would bring African American students to my dorm room for interviews occasionally. And I became aware that other girls in the dorm were calling me a n—– lover. Again, I was shocked and thought that this was an appalling sign of ancient modes of thinking. And it meant that I didn’t want to live with those people if that was the way they felt.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:26:43] Were you ashamed of their attitudes?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:26:45] I was, yeah. And I didn’t change anything that I did. And I never knew exactly who would call me that. It just got repeated to me. So I didn’t go out of my way to talk to anybody and confront them about that kind of thing. But again, I didn’t change anything that I was doing. And eventually I moved out of the dorm because I didn’t, I couldn’t, I didn’t feel at home with people who had those attitudes.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:19] Were you aware, kind of post-climax of the Civil Rights movement, by the time you’re in college, because you were there in the ’70s?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:27:27] Yeah, late ’70s.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:27:29] I mean, did you still like, interact any, you know, like sit-ins or protests?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:27:34] Oh, yeah, yeah. I participated in some sit-ins and protests at Duke. I’m trying to remember what the issues were. I think some were related to race relations issues. I also was thrilled to be sent by the college newspaper to cover an anniversary of the Greensboro sit ins at the Woolworth counter. I’m trying to remember what the year was. ’81. So maybe the 20th anniversary of 1961, something like that.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:04] I think Greensboro was ’60, ’61.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:28:07] So, yeah, that was. It seemed very natural to me to be participating in demonstrations, although I don’t remember doing it in high school or here in Cleveland.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:28:23] Did you think Cleveland needed that though, or Shaker needed it?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:28:28] Well, I can imagine situations that we were around for that it might have called for. I mean, I suppose you could say I participated just by being in that very first group that voluntarily desegregated Moreland. We were here when Martin Luther King came to speak on the steps of Heights Christian Church up the block here. But we, that was shortly after we moved here. I don’t know if my parents were highly aware of what was going on there. I remember meeting Carl Stokes when he was running for mayor of Cleveland and he was the first African American mayor of a major metropolitan area. I shook his hand. I thought, okay. To me, it was no big deal. That’s how my parents treated it and that’s how I perceived it.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:29:20] I mean, it’s great. I love doing things like that and with the kind of no big deal attitude. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. It’s what you grew up around, you know, that’s where your parents, you know, raised you. Did you ever feel in the minority, you know, among other white people? Did you ever think about that?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:29:43] No. I really don’t remember feeling that I was different for that reason or that other people were not that comfortable. Nonetheless, by the time we got to high school, people really had segregated themselves. And I don’t want to use that in a racial way, that term segregated. But I always, at the time, I really perceived it as a matter of interests. I was taking AP courses and I was active in choir and theater. So there were far fewer African American students involved in those activities than in some of the other activities. So if I had wanted to be a cheerleader, I would have been more confronted with being different from my white peers because most of the cheerleaders at that time were African American. If I had wanted to be a basketball player or a volleyball player, I would have probably been more conscious of perhaps being in a minority. But to me, it was a difference between kids who wanted to work harder and kids who didn’t, whether they chose to be in AP courses or not. And I was not at the time athletic, so I didn’t worry about how integrated any particular athletic group or activity or club was. There were African American students involved in all of those things in choir and theater. And the AP courses that I took, they were again, more in the minority there than in other parts of school life. And we all went to the same parties and had social time together. I can’t remember a lot of interracial relationships, but there were some. And I didn’t think it was unusual or inappropriate.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:48] No big deal.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:31:49] It was no big deal.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:31:52] What kind of activities did you guys do around Shaker? Like, where did you guys go?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:31:58] Well, I biked a lot. I grew up on my bicycle and gosh, I can remember going with my friends to Horseshoe Lake for picnics, biking out to Chagrin Falls for a really challenging bike ride. My main activities were all in the community when I was growing up. That’s very different from today, where the parents get their kids, travel soccer and travel baseball. My own girls do Irish dance. That’s not a very Shaker activity. We’re all over the country for Irish dance activities and there’s hardly, there are quite a few actually Shaker students involved, but it’s not, it’s not big on the radar for most Shaker families. What were activities? You know, it just a lot of bicycling and low key stuff that kids could do on their own. My parents, I think, paid very little attention to what I was doing. You know, I was babysitting, I was spending time with school friends. We were always very involved in our church. So there were church youth group activities. And when I was in junior high, somewhere in there, my parents switched churches from the downtown church because they went to a suburban evangelical church because they thought it was really important that I be involved in a youth group. And the downtown church didn’t really have anything like that. And we also helped start a chapter of Young Life in Shaker. Do you know what Young Life is? It’s an interdenominational Christian youth group that is active on high school and college campuses. And my parents helped start that in Shaker. So. So I was involved in recruiting other students and we had meetings in people’s living rooms and we had to get school permission for some reason to, I guess to recruit at the school. And I can’t remember what the recruiting involved. I mean, I don’t remember anything very publicly overt because I’m sure I wouldn’t have wanted to participate in that. But we had meetings. We had like early prayer meetings at somebody’s house right across the street from the high school every now and then.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:34:24] Was that a nationwide group?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:34:26] Yeah. Oh, yeah, it’s international. Actually. Someone who was my youth group leader when I was in high school is now in London for Young Life.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:34:34] I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:34:36] I don’t know why either. I guess it never really took off to the way some other groups might have. Maybe it’s too tame. It’s not, I loved it because we would go away for weekends and do a lot of guitar singing and hiking in the woods. And it was always about fun and singing. And I really saw it as healthy, just a healthy and Christian outlet for kids. So I was involved in that. Again, my activities were. I’m trying to remember, what would I have put on my college applications? Yeah, I did a lot of musical theater and choir stuff and I worked on the literary magazine at school. So either church based or community school based.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:35:32] What kind of shows did you do at your high school?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:35:38] Well, while I was growing up, we did Guys and Dolls, Little Abner, Pajama Game. There’s got to be another one in there that I’m just not remembering. And rock operas were big. Tommy had just come out. So students would write shows and have an all student band and group of singers perform in it for senior projects. So that was something that I participated in as well.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:36:04] [inaudible]
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:36:09] You know, I was just reading someone’s commencement speech. It went viral. This guy in Wellesley, Massachusetts, who told the kids at his high school, you’re nothing special. And I was reading the speech because he talks about how there are, I don’t know, something like, I can’t remember the numbers, but thousands and thousands of people graduating from high school at the same time, and they’re all going off to college. Most of them are going off to college. And if you’re one in a million, then there’s 7,000 people just like you. And he was trying to say, you need to keep working at contributing to the world, et cetera. But just to give you where it was leading with this, I had, I had the lead a couple times in the musicals, and I went off to Duke and I’m going to an audition, and I find out that someone else auditioning had the very same role at her high school in the same show. And we’re both, you know, it’s a whole new level when you get to college. And that was a good wake up call for me. Painful but valuable.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:37:23] Oh, I completely understand. My original track was a theater major. And I realized when I got to CSU, I was like, I think I only did this because of my friends, because now I don’t have any friends and I’m not enjoying it. You know what I mean?
Annette Tucker Sutherland [00:37:33] Well, actually, I felt the same way. I didn’t like the theater group at Duke very much, so I didn’t participate.
Gabriella Halligan-Taylor [00:37:42] When I decided I liked other things, theater was just like a cherry on top, I guess.
Annette Tucker Suthe
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