PLEASANT HILL RAMBLINGS: Steve Boyce, Knoxville tenor, in concert Feb. 12

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Steve Boyce

February 6, 2012

By Jean Clark Chronicle contributor The Crossville Chronicle Mon Feb 06, 2012, 02:33 PM CST

CROSSVILLE — The Boyce family has been part of Pleasant Hill history since 1908. Honoring that long heritage and coupling it with local history, an event titled “A Love Affair with History” will headline the tenor virtuoso, Sephen Boyce, in concert Feb. 12 at 3 p.m. in the sanctuary of the Pleasant Hill Community Church, United Church of Christ. The concert is free and open to the public with a free-will offering benefiting Pioneer Hall Museum, owned by the Pleasant Hill Historical Society. Dialogues/vignettes will be interspersed throughout the event drawing on the rich history of Pleasant Hill. I understand that you will get a chance to meet the “first mayor of Pleasant Hill,” an opportunity not afforded very often, since Pleasant Hill was incorporated in 1903.

Steve Boyce is native to Cumberland County and considers it home, but has lived in Knoxville for 36 years. He is active in the Knoxville music scene and has been a tenor soloist in past performances for the Knoxville Symphony, Knoxville Opera and Knoxville Choral Society’s concerts. He is cantor for St. John’s Cathedral, the East Tennessee Diocese Cathedral and owns and operates two music stores in Knoxville that provide school band specialty services for schools all over east Tennessee. Steve is a long-time member of East Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association, Tennessee Band Association and Tennessee Secondary School Band Directors Association. Steve’s wife, Patsy, teaches anatomy and physiology at Carson Newman College and his daughter, Jennifer, is a senior at Carson Newman, majoring in business.

Exhibit tables will be set up in Boyce Hall of the church with various displays of local history. Rather than the usual “reception” at the end of the program, Historical Society members will celebrate the “afternoon teas” often shared by Dr. May Cravath Wharton and Miss Elizabeth Fletcher. The books Doctor Woman of the Cumberlands and Thy Loving Children Still by Iris Webb Glebe depicting Pleasant Hill history will be available. It is fitting that this venue will be in Boyce Hall of the Community Church, which was named for the Boyce family in 1995 after its completion. Stephen Boyce is the third generation of Boyces who have played an important part in the life of Pleasant Hill. Alexander Boyce and his wife, Sally, were sent by the American Missionary Association to the Pleasant Hill Academy. Alexander served as business manager of the Academy from 1908 through 1912. They returned to the Academy in 1920 with their son, William (Bill).

Bill, after graduating from the Pleasant Hill Academy in 1935 and Berea College, KY, in 1939, married Leola Piper. Leola came to Pleasant Hill in 1936 after hearing a plea from Dora Goodale in Washington, DC, about the needs of the poor children of the Cumberlands. She served as operating room nurse and supervisor at Uplands Sanitorium under Miss Alice Adshead. Bill taught agriculture and managed farms at schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and UT in Knoxville while Leola worked as a school, hospital, or private duty nurse. They returned to Pleasant Hill from 1947 to 1954, when Bill was appointed director of the Pleasant Hill Community Center and managed the Farmer’s Cooperative. The Community Center encompassed the Academy Farm, the thrift shop, as well as the crafts and woodworking industries. The three Boyce sons remember often visiting their father, Bill, at his office in Pioneer Hall, the first room to the left of the front door. Bill and Leola returned to Pleasant Hill. Their youngest son, Stephen, was born here on the Plateau and was an active member of the Cumberland County Playhouse during its beginning years. Steve was a student of the Bryant Academy, which was an outgrowth of Tennessee Technological University, and a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky. Just as his grandparents and parents were drawn back to Pleasant Hill, Steve annually returns to Pleasant Hill to give a concert in their memory and honor. This event, “A Love Affair with History,” will be especially meaningful as Steve’s clear tenor voice rings out in the newly renovated sanctuary with modern acoustics of the church that his family belonged to for so many years. Even more significant is the free-will offering, which will benefit Pioneer Hall Museum where he used to visit the office of his father as a child.

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PLEASANT HILL RAMBLINGS: Steve Boyce, Knoxville tenor, in concert Feb. 12

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