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Mountain Chatter With Ed Clute, beloved Watkins Glen pianist, playing Dixieland jazz in Wellsboro’s The hotel’s Red Room dining room was filled to capacity with more than two hundred music lovers who enjoyed dinner followed by the performances of the Charles Kefover Trio and the headliner, Ed Clute’s Dixie 5 + 1 band, including Mansfield songbird Juanita Jobst. The jazz festival, sponsored by David Tews of Indigo Wireless and Mountain Home magazine, drew a crowd from New York as well as Pennsylvania and set a record for cash donations to the Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries. Second Chance, run by Wellsboro teacher Sue Cook, is a six-year-old animal rescue and adoption group that is raising money to build a no-kill animal shelter on donated land in Tioga County. The need for such a facility has become more urgent with the announcement by the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that it will close its Wellsboro facility in the near future. (See story page 25). The Penn Wells Hotel donated use of its dining room for the occasion. At the end of the night, when the concert profit and the money and checks in the collection basket added up to $2,672, Penn Wells general manager Ed Murphy contributed $328 on behalf of the hotel to bring the total to an even $3,000, according to Linda Williams, the treasurer for the event. The dog performing five-foot leaps in the lobby was a cattle dog-corgi mix named Yogi, recently adopted from Second Chance by Mountain Home’s owners. “To be honest, we didn’t expect the concert to be such a hit. We hoped it would be an exciting night of music and raise some money for a good cause close to our hearts,” said Teresa Capuzzo, Mountain Home’s editor. “But the response was so great we’re planning to do it again next year. It gives folks in the Twin Tiers a chance to listen to some good live music on a winter night, and helps draw business to the hotel and to Main Street during a quiet season.” Plans are already underway for next year’s Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest, she said, with an eye toward adding more events. “We’re working on plans for a bigger and better event next year,” said Linda Williams. The concert was the brainchild of her husband, Bob, who envisions it as a cozy night of music, not an extravaganza. Williams has a poor record making such predictions. His last idea for a small winter event now draws more than 20,000 people to Wellsboro each December. It’s called Dickens of a Christmas. |
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Penn Wells Hotel and a dog performing leaps in the lobby, the first Mountain Home Winter Jazz Fest raised $3,017.16 on March 1 for Second Chance Animal Sanctuaries of Tioga County.
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