Award Namesakes

Betty Hantiuk, the daughter of Charles Brinton and Margaret Callahan, was born in Vegreville in 1919 and died in 2004. She was raised on her parents' farm, a few miles east of Vegreville. She attended Normal School in Edmonton and taught for several years before marrying John Hantiuk. They raised six children, and Betty returned to teaching and substitute teaching in Vegreville for many years.

Throughout her life in Vegreville, she volunteered in many local organizations, including the Wendy Brook Music Festival. Betty's interest in music stemmed from her father's participation in the Vegreville Elks Band during the 1920s and 1930s. She herself never received any music lessons, but she enjoyed music and encouraged her children to learn to play a musical instrument. As a teacher, she organized many Christmas concerts and rehearsed songs, plays, and recitations with her students.

Betty was a talented writer who frequently contributed articles in local newspapers and won prizes for her creative writing. One of her final projects was writing her memoirs of growing up in the Vegreville area, which she called Brinton's Hill. Betty would be very pleased to know that the Wendy Brook Music Festival is still held every year, and that her family proudly contributes a prize in her honour.

Heather Soldan was a schoolteacher, journalist, and author who moved from the Okanagan to Vegreville in 1990, and settled in Two Hills soon after, when she married Allan Soldan. She published two books — All Things Considered and Now That's An Egg! — and edited another, Pulse to Pen, Remembering When, all under her previous name, Heather Glebe.

Heather followed in her father's footsteps and played the fiddle, and when Colette Miller in Vegreville encouraged her to teach her girls to play, Heather took up the challenge. Thus began a new career extending for more than twenty years, and she soon had a steady stream of beginner and intermediate violin students in Two Hills, Vegreville, and surrounding areas. To broaden her students' overall learning experiences, Heather always encouraged them to take part in the Wendy Brook Music Festival and various fiddle camps.

In 1993 Heather founded "The Fiddlin' Kiddlins," a group of children and teens who volunteered entertainment for seniors' homes, community events, family dances, and an annual concert. Heather and helpful parents poured hours of volunteer time and energy into the group until her sudden and untimely passing in May 2014. She had expressed many times that she felt very privileged to teach young people who really wanted to learn to learn to play, and whose parents supported them.

Heather Soldan wrote a number of fiddle tunes, two of which Calvin Vollrath included in her memory in his 2015 CD release. She also served on the board of the Alberta Society of Fiddlers, and for many years taught the Beginner class at their winter camps. With her passion for music and youth, along with her endless energy, creativity, and gift for teaching, she impacted many young people in their musical journeys. Her husband Allan and family are proud of her accomplishments, and elected to support the Wendy Brook Music Festival with a trophy to be awarded annually in her memory.

Do you remember that special piano teacher who you both loved and feared (just a little bit)? Well, that was our Mr. George Kuwata! Having spent his early years in a Japanese internment camp, this gifted pianist found his way to Vegreville where he taught hundreds of students over 57 years.

George lived humbly, with a steady stream of students in and out of his apartment next to A.L. Horton School. His two beautiful Yamaha pianos and overflowing bookshelves filled his tiny living room. He was known for his patience, kindness, and sense of humour, and had a firm way of encouraging piano students to "come prepared" each week. A lifelong learner, George took an Athabasca University course each year to keep his mind sharp.

He was a Royal Conservatory teacher through the 1970s, and almost twenty years later, students Ashley and Stacey "pulled Mr. Kuwata out of retirement" to once again teach. George, now in his late 70s, was transformed into the young piano teacher who had arrived in Vegreville fifty years earlier. Although he was quite blind prior to cataract surgery, he was assured that if he had his hearing, he was still quite capable of teaching many aspiring young students.

Mr. Kuwata died September 7, 1999, leaving so many of his former students richer from the beautiful gift of music that he shared. He would be so happy to see that the Wendy Brook George Kuwata Memorial Award continues to benefit piano students today.

Gladys Emily Wyllie (née Kelly) was born in England and immigrated to Canada with her parents when still a young child. The family settled on a farm less than eight miles south of Vegreville, moving to Edmonton a few years later. As a young woman, Gladys worked in the GWG factory. She loved to sing and play the piano and enjoyed singing in St. Luke's Anglican Church choir in Edmonton.

In her early twenties, Gladys contracted polio and became slightly handicapped with her walking. In 1936, after her recovery, she married James Wyllie in Burnaby, B.C. and returned to the Vegreville area — to enjoy life on a farm within a half-mile of her former home! Gladys was a member of the Old Vegreville Women's Institute and then one of the Charter Members of the Wendy Brook Women's Institute when it was formed in May 1950.

She was also present when the group passed the motion to organize the Wendy Brook Music Festival, and would constantly ask the leaders if there was something she could do to help. Many would remember Gladys — as long as her health enabled her to attend the final Festival Concerts — guiding her wheelchair to the base of the stage so that she could personally present her awards to the deserving recipients.

Following Gladys's passing in 1995, her daughter June Wyard-Scott generously continued presenting awards in honour of her mother. At Gladys's funeral, it took little effort to gather some former singers — now professionals or busily occupied — grateful for the opportunity of offering a musical farewell to Gladys, who will always be remembered for her kindness, her generosity, and her keen interest in people.

When a sponsor was needed to pay for the construction of a display case at the Vegreville library to house Wendy Brook's plaques, Dr. Tim Nawrot and Dr. Elizabeth Sharp-Nawrot stepped forward to pay for this project in honour of Tim's mother, Leola. In addition, the Leola Nawrot Memorial Piano Award is also given in her memory. Leola Nawrot was a teacher, a mother, and a grandmother, who supported the arts in Vegreville.

Leola taught Grade 1 at the Queen Elizabeth School, on the site of the current library, whose gym still exists attached to the library. Leola's classes were always registered in the festival for singing and choral speech, and she also encouraged individual students who showed aptitude in speech arts to participate. In addition, she motivated other teachers and classes to participate, and encouraged, tutored, and practised with her own children and grandchildren to have them take part in the festival — attending all of their performances.

Besides her support of the festival and her teaching career, Leola frequented the library and conducted Storytime for Kids there for years. Something she frequently said was, "There is always a place for every child in this world." This became her motto in her teaching of Grade 1 students and embodied how she taught and encouraged all students. There is a plaque in the Wendy Brook display case in recognition of Leola's commitment to the Wendy Brook Music Festival as well as her support of the arts in the community.