Janis Rogers:  

rst lived in Munsell Hall, later moving to Pfeiffer Hall for junior/senior years. As a freshman, I pledged Delta Omicron Music Fraternity, later serving as the rush chairman. It's still a great rush to meet up with or read about DO sisters around the world. I enjoyed voice lessons with Mrs. Drexler and Mark Goetzinger, and violin class with Mr. Mancinelli. I remember the construction of the new music building which was built after the great Presser Hall fire; I still have an army blanket I filched from one of the newly delivered grand pianos in the new building! Along with several music school cohorts, we enjoyed "kidnapping" the garbage cans and fake trees, placing them into the elevator installed in the circular stairwell of Presser Hall. Although we as a class were all pretty fine musicians, we were the last of a breed that remembered how to have a fun life as well. I'll never forget Dr. Streeter racing across the quad after Janet Frevert, with a large Luger water-pistol in hand! Workplace My first teaching job was teaching vocal music 1-12 in Gilman IL. A far cry from suburban Chicago where I grew up! My first HS choir had 17 sopranos and 1 bass Ñ college was great, but NEVER prepared me for this. It was a real experience, and I stayed for two years: that small district hadn't offered tenure to a vocal music teacher in over 20 years (something they never stated during the interview!) Moved back to suburban Chicago and started working for Baldwin Piano & Organ Co., in sales at Fox Valley Mall. That was pretty fun, too! While attending their Piano Sales Training School in AR & MS, I met Chuck, my once and always love. We started working together a few months after we met, and within the year we were married and starting our own music store, with me teaching piano on the side. Our best years have always been when we worked together Ð something most married couples can NOT do! After the Music Mall, we worked apart for a while, and then I joined the Mac consulting business Chuck started. We haven't always worked together: I spent some time teaching school in WI. Since moving to New Orleans, I have done lots of different things: taught computer classes to preschoolers, worked at a banner-making company, worked as assistant to a petroleum engineer, been a bookkeeper, a Mac computer consultant, a cheesecake baker. Never a dull moment. Now I do most of these things in a gigantic juggling act, AND I'm working with Chuck for a Mac-only speech recognition software company Ñ MacSpeech, Inc., based in New Hampshire Ñ right here in New Orleans. Y'all would LOVE this life...