Barbara Louise Smith Conrad

This week’s Cass County Pioneer is a musician. World famous mezzo soprano opera singer Barbara Louise Smith Conrad was born in Atlanta, Texas on August 11, 1937. Raised in a family of music lovers near Pittsburg in the Center Point community, Conrad first learned to sing while in church with her siblings when they were young. As a young adult, Conrad went to Prairie View College until she transferred to the University of Texas in Austin in 1956. There, she expanded her musical training and pursued her passion for the art. Conrad was among the first class of African American students at the recently desegregated university. Though Conrad and her peers faced racial tensions amidst the desegregation movement, she gained stage experience and expanded her craft.

Following her graduation from UT Austin in 1959, Conrad’s music career took off. She traveled to New York, where she starred as the lead in Porgy and Bess at the New York City Opera. She also performed regularly at the Met throughout the 1980’s. Conrad had a prosperous musical career. She earned many accolades and awards, including the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement and the History-Making Texan Award. She was also inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. Barbara Louise Smith Conrad passed away at seventy-nine years old in 2017.

by: Misty Golden, Texas A&M-Texarkana Graduate Student

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to visit New Boston

The Moving Wall, a Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica, has been touring the USA since 1984. This healing wall has helped generations visualize and touch a loved ones name. The Moving Wall is the half-size replica of the Washington, D.C. Vietnam Veterans memorial and has been touring the country for forty plus years. It went on display for the first time in Tyler, Texas in October of 1984 and will be in New Boston, Texas at the Pavilion on NE Front Street in Downtown New Boston from September 4th through September 8th.

Reach out to my office — P.O. Box 825 Linden, TX 75563 Phone: 903-756-5181, Ext. 0 Fax: 903-756-5732