Alaska

Bells of the Cascades, clinicians

Bells of the Cascades alumna Judy Schumacher shares this memory from our early Handbell Cruise.

In 1989, the year before Bells of the Cascades was formed; Glen and Nancy Hascall and Warren and Judy Schumacher sat at a table at a post concert function at the Area X Festival at Western University in Monmouth, and discussed how fun it would be to play on a cruise ship. There is nothing like a seed planted in the mind of grandiose thinking people.

After formation of Bells of the Cascades and one year of organization “under our belts,” we started talking about this possibility again. One of our members, Becky Swick, had a friend that worked for Travel Marketing, a million dollar agency for Holland America. Large amounts of enthusiasm carried us through the first planning and cruise to Alaska in September of 1993. We chose the week after Labor Day to sail because that was the time that the cruise fares decreased a bit. We had 33 classroom or concert opportunities on this first cruise and we worked ourselves into a frenzy. BOC had to set up each teaching area and taught three classes at once. We played a concert in Juneau, having to transport all the equipment off and on the ship. We quickly decided not to do that again. It was over and above the call of duty. We were tired but wanted to try it again with a bigger committee and dividing the work a bit more equally.