Retired Metro Editor "Wrote the Book" for Kodalyby Judith Offer |
 Toni Locke with Metro in front of Yosemite’s Half Dome. File Photo. |
Toni Locke, the long-time MacArthur Metro editor, started her self-described "first life" as a piano teacher and mother of three in Massachusetts, where most of her family still lives. In her mid-fifties, divorced and looking for a "second life," she enrolled in the Kodaly Music Training Institute at Wellesley College, which was not far from her home. The training included a year in Hungary, where the program originated. There, she learned of the need for a collection of American folk songs that could be used to teach American children how to sing. At the time Toni completed her training and was looking for a job, Holy Names College was seeking someone to research and organize their burgeoning folk music collection. This led her to research such music around the country, and to write a book called 155 Folk Songs to Sing, Read and Play, the book used by COVA. Meanwhile, Toni, who describes herself as an old thirties leftist, had become involved in her neighborhood, the Laurel District, with the MacArthur Coalition, a citizens group that worked on whatever improved the neighborhood. When the MacArthur Metro was having problems and appeared to be shutting down, the MacArthur Coalition stepped in to rescue it, and Toni became the "de facto managing editor." "While I had no training," she notes, "my family did have five generations of ownership of a small paper in the upstate New York town of Ballston. So I guess it was in my blood." She also admits to an "urge to try something new." |
