The Round Top Festival Institute celebrates Valentine’s Day with a musical performance in its glorious concert hall. And on the eve of the Winter Olympics in South Korea, we remember a legendary Winter Games star who later made Dallas her home.
Who Wrote the Book of Love?
The Round Top Festival Institute combines a love of books and a love of romance with its Valentine’s Concert with Dick Smith and Friends on February 10.
After the performance, featuring popular songs celebrating sweethearts, guests may sponsor a book and bid on silent auction items to benefit the institute’s library.
Concert pianist James Dick established the institute, a member of Fayette Electric Cooperative, in 1971 to nurture aspiring young musicians. It has grown to encompass a campus of more than 200 acres, featuring the 1,000-seat Festival Concert Hall. Call (979) 249-3129, or visit festivalhill.org for details.
Passing the Torch
When the Olympic torch passed through Dallas on December 12, 2001, on its way to Salt Lake City, Mayor Ron Kirk chose 89-year-old Dorothy Franey Langkop to carry the torch up the steps of City Hall. Who better than one of Texas’ greatest-ever ice skaters?
Langkop was born in Minnesota and won bronze in women’s speed skating at the 1932 Winter Olympics before setting 12 world records in the sport. But she’s best known for The Franey Ice Revue, her figure skating show that ran 14 years at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas beginning in 1943. Langkop died in 2011.
Other former Winter Olympics greats, including Chad Hedrick, Brian Leetch and Tara Lipinski, also have called the Lone Star State home at points in their lives.
So while Texas isn’t known for its snow or ice, Texans still may be in the mix when the 2018 Winter Olympic Games kick off February 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Worth Repeating
“Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.”
—George Washington Carver, a former slave turned botanist who revolutionized agriculture by inventing new uses for such crops as peanuts and soybeans, producing adhesives, bleach, buttermilk, ink, shoe polish, synthetic rubber, pavement and more. February 11 is National Inventors’ Day.
By the Numbers
Texas Co-op Power’s circulation hit 1.54 million in December. It has the highest circulation of any magazine in the state.
