Dear editor,
Regarding the third part of a series on MusicFest lack of local funding (Record, Aug. 15):
Just to set the record straight and to be fair to our founders, Edwin Grieve was not a founding member.
The original seven were Wendy Knudson, Diana Paige, BettyAnne Hampton, Jane Gilchrist, Dale Graham, Sam Lennox and one more fellow whose name we have yet to confirm.
That was in 1995 and the first festival was at North Island College. After that it moved to the Fairgrounds and the Comox Valley Folk Society was founded by Knudson with Hampton as chair in 1996. We will all forever owe a huge debt to those founders and need to remember who they were.
Grieve joined the board in 1998 or 1999 in either the fourth or fifth year of our festival history.
Also, worthy of note, the year we lost $48,000 was in ’98 or ’99 and the most substantial bailout for us came through a loan from the (now defunct) Jasper Folk Festival which we eventually paid back.
This coming year’s festival is our 20th and we hope to create an archive over the next year that will tell the full history of MusicFest to be on display for anyone interested at next year’s event.
Doug Cox,
Cumberland
Editor’s note: Doug Cox is the executive producer of Vancouver Island MusicFest.
