The three-day Scott Joplin International Centennial Celebration didn't pass the weekend without a salute to other locally-born renown musicians and composers -even during one of the event's intermissions.
Centennial event organizers took the occasion during a break at Saturday's celebration inside the Perot Theatre to spot-light former Texarkana resident Rule Beasley.
Beasley, became the first person to receive the Regional Music Heritage Center Lifetime Achievement Award as a "first family of Texarkana music" member who contributed greatly to the city's multi-layered musical genres, which include not only ragtime, but classical, jazz, Boogie-Woogie and Rockabilly.
"I feel highly honored to receive this award," Beasley, now 86, said. "This comes as a total surprise. I'm very grateful for this honor."
Born Aug. 12, 1931, Beasley graduated from Arkansas High School, class of 1948, then went on to study music at Southern Methodist University before answering his country's call to military service during the Korean War. While not specifically deployed to Korea, Beasley served in a U.S. Army band while stationed for three years at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
Following his military discharge, Beasley resumed his college education in music, earning a master's degree from the University of Illinois. He became not only a composer and musician, but a music professor, teaching at Santa Monica College in California.
While growing up in Texarkana, Beasley said he developed his love for music, in part, by spending time at his family's Beasley Music Store, on both East and West Broad Streets at various times during the business' 85-year history.
"I spent a great part of my time as a kid browsing through my dad's (George Beasley Sr.'s) store," Beasley said.
Well before the 1973 motion picture "The Sting" summoned widespread attention to Joplin's musical ragtime genius, the late George Beasley Sr. started educating people about Joplin's creative energy as early as 1956. Local history indicates that George Beasley Sr. may have met Joplin in 1907 while Joplin performed his "Maple Leaf Rag" at the downtown music store.