Columnist John Katsilometes: Concerted effort for SNCC

Monday, July 17, 2000 | 9:10 a.m.

John Katsilometes is the Sun assistant features editor. His column appears Mondays. Reach him at kats@lasvegassun.com or 259-2327.

Joyce Ferres reaches for the tuna-pasta salad. She tries lifting the heavy glass bowl, but can't and drops it to the table.

Clunk.

"Watch the table!" calls out Joan LeMere, owner of the table, feigning horror. "Don't scar the table!"

Ferres winces and points to a reddish welt in the crook of her right arm.

"I'm so sore," Ferres says. "I donated blood today. You should give blood. It's so important."

Similarly vital on this bright afternoon is the tenuous future of Southern Nevada Community Concerts. Entering its 64th year as our city's oldest cultural events program, SNCC faces significant changes and obstacles entering its 2000 concert season. Beginning Sept. 29 with pianists Douglas Webster and Lincoln Mayorga, SNCC is banking on such acts as the Kinda Dixie Jazz Band (Nov. 19), vocal stylists Three Hits and a Miss (Jan. 14), comic Dale Gonyea (March 10) and musical ensemble Alborada.

(An aside: Three Hits and a Miss is comprised of three men -- the Hits -- and a woman -- the Miss -- and the foursome appear quite wholesome indeed.)

Fretting over the SNCC's state of affairs at this brainstorming session is the organization's president, Anita Stark, along with fellow officers John Losky, Agnes Capps, Ferres and LeMere. Seated in orderly fashion and picking at noshes prepared by LeMere, the group's palpable energy is tempered only by its frustration.

"The problem in society is nobody joins clubs or organizations any more," Losky says. "They move into a community and don't contribute to its cultural climate."

And, he stresses, Las Vegas does have a cultural climate.

The nonprofit SNCC has been entrenched in Las Vegas since 1937. The officers hammer home the club's historical significance, prideful that it predates just about every cultural institution in Southern Nevada. But several cultural and arts-attentive organizations have sprouted since -- not to mention dozens of behemoth resort-casinos -- to make the club feel buried under the competition.

Unable to fill (or afford) spacious Artemus Ham Concert Hall at UNLV (capacity of 1,800), SNCC is moving its five performances to the more intimate (smaller) Nicholas J. Horn Theatre at the Community College of Southern Nevada (capacity of 524). Aware their performances usually drew around 600 in cavernous Ham Hall, SNCC officers faced a choice: continue to rent the UNLV theater and jack up membership fees to break even, or downsize to Horn Theatre and keep the rates at $50 per season.

It was an easy call. An increase would likely lead to defections and the SNCC can't afford to lose a single member. The organization's membership stands at around 300 and it needs at least 200 more just to keep afloat. An aggressive outreach campaign has been launched, with pamphlets being displayed at area bookstores and the YMCA. Reaching a younger audience is a constant struggle, and the concern is that there won't be a next generation of volunteers for the SNCC.

The organization is worth checking out, if only to fulfill a community obligation. Certainly, it's less painful than giving blood.