2005 Living Legend
Mavis Burtness
By Maggie Ryan, Greater Harrisburg Chorus, Region 19
Here is Mavis, all pinpoint heels and matching handbag, accessories
just so but not too-too. Don’t dismiss these things. They
matter. This is attention to detail. God –and sometimes the
devil– is in the details.
Mavis Burtness is the recipient of the 2005 Lifetime Achievement
Award. The title is grand, but not nearly as grand as the little
lady who carries it. She is a wisp of a woman, all sly eyes and
gravelly voice with a laugh that travels right down to her painted
toes. She’s a thoroughbred in every sense of the word, with
a confidence and bearing that sets her apart in a crowd.
Friends, and she has too many to count, call her nurturing, kind,
supportive and empowering. Recipients of her many years of judging
comments may call her a few other things, perhaps not so choice,
and Mavis understands. It was never about hurting anyone, you see.
It was about teaching; about perfecting the mundane things that
reemerge magnificent. Those details. Those blessed, bedeviling details.
Mavis’s life is so entwined with Sweet Adelines they cannot
be separated. Most know her from her many years as a judge in showmanship
and expression, but Mavis also won a chorus championship with High
Country (Denver, Colo.) and served administratively on regional
and International boards of directors. Countless choruses and quartets
owe their medals and crowns to her fine eye and generous nature.
Her gentle and thoughtful guidance of up-and-coming judges is still
regarded as second-to-none. Those relationships brought her offspring
of a different sort, women she spotted in crowds and made into International-level
leaders.
One who stands out is Marilyn Rose. Marilyn met Mavis way, way back,
long before Marilyn had any inkling that Sweet Adelines would sneak
into her soul. They were neighbors and buddies out in Colorado until
Marilyn moved to the East Coast.
Mavis did more than keep in touch. She pulled Marilyn in before
she really knew what hit her.
“I saw something in her, I don’t know what it was,”
Mavis says. “We would sit together and the comments she made,
they told me she had an eye for judging.”
It wasn’t long before Marilyn found herself in the pit –without,
truth be told– the benefit of today’s extensive training.
These were the early days of Sweet Adelines, before Mavis and the
other pioneers refined a lot of today’s infrastructure.
But they thrived, and to hear Marilyn tell it, Mavis made it so.
“She is the most loving person I have ever met,” Marilyn
says.
One need not look further than Mavis and Marilyn to understand the
friendships that can spring from a shared passion. They finish each
other’s sentences and interpret the other one’s gestures.
They have roomed together at Sweet Adelines events since 1968. They
keep an eye on each other in crowds, just to make sure. They have
their stories –oh, do they have stories– of makeup mishaps,
costume catastrophes and performers who took their breath away.
They laugh until they cry at “bless-their-hearts” things,
moments so unexpected that all that can be said is “bless
their hearts, they tried.”
Longtime showmanship judge Ida Bilodeau calls Mavis her steel magnolia,
a testament to the unbreakable threads that run through this 100-percent
lady.
“I always felt I could talk to her and get good advice,”
Ida said. “She is very nurturing, very supportive, a wonderful
listener and mentor. She’s just the best.”
Mention Mavis to most any Sweet Adeline at the International level
and the response is the same: a head tossed back, a smile of recollection,
and the same repeating phrase. Mavis has her way.
She is a guardian of style and with one look you can see it’s
still important to her. Picture Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, back
when designers hung anything on a woman and she could make it look
like a million bucks. Picture an attitude, a walk, a command of
a scene. This is the lens through which Mavis sees and there is
nothing hazy about it. The great ones have standards. It is a matter
of respect – respect for oneself, for the craft, for the audience,
any audience, anywhere, any time.
Mavis defined it, refined it, and pushes even now to uphold it.
This honor from Sweet Adelines, this symbol of thanks from today’s
organization, has knocked Mavis for a loop.
“It’s incredible,” she says. “It’s
hard to believe. When I received the call from [International president]
Diane Huber, my heart! Oh! I was holding my chest.”
Her first call was, of course, to Marilyn.
“She has done so much for the organization,” Marilyn
said. “She deserves this so much.”
Mavis remains active in Sweet Adelines, although health issues have
dealt her a blow the last few years and limited her involvement.
She is a member of 2005 second-place medalist Skyline Chorus (Denver,
Colo.), where she says she helps, “but not every week.”
“They had a riser chair made for me, but I haven’t been
able to use it yet,” she said. “I got a bad deal [with
her health.]”
That little hitch, that nanosecond of disappointment, is about all
the regret you’ll hear from Mavis Burtness. Not in a world
full of friends and their constant kindness. Not with so many reasons
to be thankful.
In Detroit Mavis received her Lifetime Achievement Award during
Friday’s quartet finals. In her words of thanks, she shared
the philosophy that has guided her life:
“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good things,
therefore, that I can do; any kindness that I can show a fellow
being; let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall
not pass this way again.”
She carried to the podium a list of Sweet Adelines who have meant
so much to her over the years. Marilyn is there. The others, well,
she decided not to mention. Someone might be left out, you see,
and that would be an unforgivable breach. But she did take you there,
all of you, in her heart.
Over the course of an active and up-front life, Mavis has been handed
a few lemons, but she hasn’t been content to make lemonade.
Let others squeeze their hardships dry. Mavis has her own way. Mavis
makes zest.
“If I had my life to live over, I’d do it the same way
over again.”
