Laura Trupp, a senior violin performance major, and Jed de la Paz, sophmore music/pre-dentistry major, are the first winners of the La Sierra University Marcia Specht Guy Memorial Award for music performance presented during the 49th annual concerto concert program March 10.

The new award is named for Marcia Specht Guy, late wife of Fritz Guy, La Sierra University's first president and currently research professor of philosophical theology in La Sierra's School of Religion. Marcia Guy faithfully attended campus music events. Her love for and faithful support of student musicians as well as her being one of the first concerto players led her family to establish this award in her memory. The award will go annually to the winner of a university competition.

"This award is one which recognizes excellence in performance," says Kimo Smith, DMA, chair of the music department. "Winners are selected on the basis of their technique, musicianship and mastery of the piece with which they are competing."

"For as long as I have been here, Marcia Guy attended concerts and recitals in this auditorium," says Lawrence T. Geraty, Ph.D., LSU president. "Her presence was legendary, beginning when she was a student and continuing for the 40 or more years that she was a resident in the community. She came to listen to and applaud the musicians as long as she was able to do so."

As a pre-nursing student at La Sierra, Marcia Specht was an accomplished pianist, having studied with Ralph Pierce and Madame Ethel Leginska. In the spring of 1951, she performed Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with the La Sierra College Orchestra under the direction of Alfred Walters. This was the precursor to the concerto program of today.

"Last fall, after her death, her family members — husband, Fritz Guy; sister, Lenore Lowry; and children, Linda Davis, Richard Guy, and Susan Reeder — decided to establish an endowed fund, as both a tangible legacy of her support for student musicians, and to encourage and foster the public performance of classical instrumental music by students at La Sierra University," Geraty says. "On behalf of the university, I would like to thank the family for this special and thoughtful support of the students and the music program."