Executive Director
Janel Ponder Smith has been involved with the performing arts since the age of four when she began singing and playing the piano. In spite of her studies in political science, English and economics, the arts have been the driving force in her life. She was a two-year member of the award-winning Rider A Cappella choir and was a member of the first choir in the Wichita Falls I.S.D. to tour out-of-state, when they were invited by U. S. Congressman Graham Purcell to perform for the Texas State Society in Washington, D.C. She took ballet and danced under the tutelage of Frank and Irina Pal and went on to serve on the board of directors of Wichita Falls Ballet Theatre where she served variously as grant writer, president, secretary, and helped build sets as well as dance in productions of “The Nutcracker.”
Janel has been in positions dealing with public relations and the media since the now-retired Jack Hightower was elected to the U. S. Congress, where she worked with and learned from former advisor to LBJ, George Christian. After Hightower’s political defeat, she served as director of Public Information at Midwestern State University where she was responsible for weekly television programming, planning and implementing all campus-wide events, and writing and publishing campus brochures, reports and pamphlets.
In addition to doing graduate work in business and public administration, Janel has owned a number of her own businesses which have trained her for dealing with lean budgets and working long hours – not unlike working for the Symphony! She is a magna cum laude graduate of Midwestern State University and has done graduate and post-baccalaureate work at Iowa State University, Texas Tech, the University of North Texas, and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Janel continues to sing and has performed solos on numerous occasions and teaches ballet. In her spare time, she and her husband restore older homes and dabble in antiques, and she is working on a children’s book and a historical novel.
A Brief History
In the booming 1920s, Wichita Falls, Texas, an “oil patch town” tried several times to get a performing symphony orchestra organized. Several concerts were performed during 1920-21, followed by several more during 1928-29. Again, just prior to World War II, the orchestra attempted a revival, but this group closed down in the spring of 1942, a casualty of the war. Finally, following the end of the war, a conductor was hired by a reorganized group and the symphony was begun again, in earnest, in the spring of 1948.
In May of 1952 the first full-time conductor, a Hungarian refugee by the name of Erno Daniel, took the podium and the following year, in the spring of 1953, the Wichita Falls Symphony Women’s League was formed. (This group is now called the Wichita Falls Symphony League since a number of men have become involved, too.)
In 1964 William Boyer was named conductor and he conducted his first performance on October 3, 1964, to a packed house as the symphony accompanied Van Cliburn, guest pianist! Boyer was still the conductor when Cliburn returned for an encore performance with the orchestra in 1969. That year, also, was a major year for the orchestra because it performed for more than 2,000 students from area schools in the spring. The annual school concerts are still performed for the fourth through sixth grade students in the Wichita Falls school system.
In June of 1984, more than 3,000 people brought quilts, chairs and picnics to the “Pops in the Park” concert performed by the WFSO. Three 105 mm howitzers from the U.S. Marine Corps in Dallas and shells from the U.S. Army post at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, climaxed the performance with Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture ” led by guest conductor Richard Hayman. Mr. Boyer retired from his position at the conclusion of the 1984-85 season, and, in the first change in artistic leadership of the orchestra in twenty years, Mr. Theodore Plute was selected as the new Music Director/Conductor, beginning his tenure with the orchestra at the start of the 1985-86 season. He held the position until the end of 1994-95 season.
Following a nationwide conductor search during which guest conductors appeared with the orchestra during the 1995-96 season, Dr. Candler Schaffer of West Melbourne, Florida, was selected as the seventh conductor in the history of the symphony.
Currently, the orchestra presents a series of six subscription concerts in Memorial Auditorium each season. Attendance averages from 1,500 to 1,700 patrons per concert. In addition to its subscription performances and the afore-mentioned school concerts, the orchestra also works with members of the Youth Symphony Orchestra through a mentoring program.
Thus, from its rather humble beginnings as a volunteer organization in 1920, the WFSO has grown to its present position as an outstanding asset to North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. The orchestra now employs approximately 70 professional musicians for its performances and features numerous outstanding guest artists as soloists each year.