Bob Lind column: Neighbors: Job-seeker comes with cello strings attached

All Neighbors knows about magna cum laude is that it's a Latin term bestowed on a few very bright college graduates.

Since the Neighbors' writer was known in college only for coming on loud but nowhere near anything laude, anyone who attains this honor stirs admiration and respect.

So today's column is a tip of the mortarboard to Allyson Bedard, Moorhead, who recently graduated magna cum laude from the school of music at the University of Southern Maine.

Allyson, the daughter of Ron and Jane Bedard, began taking cello lessons in the fifth grade. She later took lessons at Concordia College.

After graduating from Moorhead High School in 1999, her parents took her to several colleges, meeting and taking lessons from various cello instructors. The one who she liked best was Bill Rounds at Southern Maine. Rounds, a native of South Dakota, plays cello for a couple of pretty decent orchestras: the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony.

Rounds was both helpful and encouraging to Allyson during her four years at Southern Maine, where her emphasis was orchestra and general music.

Allyson returned home last spring to do her student teaching under Brian Cole and Kathy Ferreira with Moorhead schools. Even with all the expertise she encountered on the East Coast, Allyson wanted the best people to work under for her student teaching assignment, and she felt Brian and Kathy couldn't be beat.

Allyson now is substitute teaching in the West Fargo schools and taking tests to be certified, and she's played with both the F-M Symphony and the Grand Forks (N.D.) Symphony.

Will she be the next Pablo Casals or Yo-Yo Ma? Could be.

But next fall, she just needs a job.

Here's another young person with loads of talent who'd like to stay in the area.

Let's hope she does.

But a note to those contemplating hiring Allyson: She comes with some strings attached.

Only in her case, it's good, because she makes those strings sing.

The e-mail wail

Forum readers know that something knocked out the newspaper's e-mail system a few weeks ago. No e-mails were received for a week.

Since the majority of tips for this column come via e-mail, this was a blow to Neighbors; it has no idea how many such suggestions it never received.

Instead of winding up at Neighbor's desk, there's a strong possibility the glitch caused those messages to be sent to the rover on Mars, where your column idea might have appeared in the Martian edition of The Forum.

The bottom line (or paragraph, in this case) is this: If you submitted ideas for a column in late February, it probably wouldn't hurt if you'd re-submit it ... unless you don't mind it being printed in the Martian Forum only.

If you have an item of interest for this column, mail it to Neighbors, The Forum, Box 2020, Fargo, N.D. 58107; fax it to 241-5487; or e-mail rlind@forumcomm.com