Quarter Notes

The pandemic continued to impact the 2021 summer Tanglewood season, and many volunteers’ activities were curbed. However, there were some new initiatives and amazing support from all members of the BSAV. The many concerts taking place at the Shed kept the ushers and greeters busy. Other volunteers enthusiastically filled in wherever they were needed.

In an effort to keep volunteers connected, a series of Friday morning coffees were scheduled, with an average of 14 individuals attending each week. The attendees found this to be a successful program, and plans are to continue this again next summer.

Looking ahead, Howie Arkans, who never turns down the opportunity of any volunteer activity when asked, has been named the 2021 Carrie L. Peace Award recipient, honoring his leadership and contributions to Tanglewood over the past two decades. He will receive this award at the Welcome Back meeting in June 2022. Howie, also the founder of the Tanglewood Lunch Club, has been involved in many volunteer projects, giving everything he has to each of these activities, always with an irresistible smile and warmth.

Howie was an usher from 2005 to 2007. From 2006 to 2009, Howie served as Vice Chair of Volunteer Development, and was the Tanglewood Vice Chair of the BSAV Executive Committee from 2011 to 2013. Since 2014, Howie has been a Tour Guide at Tanglewood and served as Co-Project Lead twice. He has also been active in the Lunch Club for 17 years.

Howie—along with his wife Sue—began volunteering at Tanglewood as a lawn host in 2003, the year he retired from his medical practice as a pediatrician, and established a permanent residency in the Berkshires. That same year, Howie and Sue also signed up to host two TMC Fellows, a tenor and a trombonist. They have kept in contact with these two, as well as many other Fellows they have come to know through the years. When Howie first became involved with the Fellows, he asked them what he and Sue could do for them. Their response was, “what they really needed was lunch.” Howie took up the challenge and got the Lunch Club approved, had it put in the Fellows’ Green Book (schedule), and the rest is history. Year after year, the Fellows praise the Lunch Club as their favorite event of the week outside of their musical activities.

Howie received his MD degree at Stanford and did a Pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins. He served as President of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics from 1988 to 1990, when he then became a Medical Director for HMO New Jersey. After that, he became Regional Medical Director for Aetna in California in 1996, where he worked for five years.

In retirement, Howie has volunteered for a Medical Clinic in the Berkshires, and also teaches movies and Italian cooking for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College. He regularly takes courses in Italian cooking and has become a gourmet cook, preparing amazing Italian food for the Fellows, for which he is famous, among Lunch Club attendees. Howie is an avid tennis player and in 2006 was ranked 16^th in the 60+ age division of USTA New England. He has been playing competitive tennis since high school. Howie and Sue have been married 56 years and have two children and five grandchildren.

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