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Phillips heritage:
I am grateful to my hometown for a solid educational foundation
(especially in music and German), lifelong friends, and an abiding
curiosity about the wider world. Growing up in a company house fostered
close relationships with my brothers Joel and Harry and forced me to find
interesting things to do outdoors. Two years of PHS Homemaking kept me
from taking physics, but prepared me well for managing a household and
entertaining. In 1961 Carolyn Moore and I represented PHS at Girls State.
Meeting outstanding young women from all over Texas and winning a state
office introduced me to the thrills and challenges of leadership and gave
me confidence to take active roles in college government, music teachers
associations, scouts, church and community affairs.
Career: A week
after receiving a BA in History from Rice University in 1966, I married
Stephen B. Smith from Odessa Permian. After a summer in Dallas, we moved
to Cambridge MA, where he had a scholarship to Harvard Business School and
I worked in a book publishing firm. In 1968 we moved to Washington DC for
Steve’s job in the Pentagon. I was hired by a Rice alum as a researcher
for a large consulting firm. When our first child was born in 1971, I used
my retirement fund to buy a piano and resumed daily practice. I soon
became the neighborhood piano teacher, much like my mother. I joined
Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association (www.nvmta.org)
and started learning from my professional colleagues. In 1996, thirty
years after my bachelor’s degree, I earned a Master of Music in Piano
Pedagogy from Catholic University. From 1977 - 2011, while Steve
negotiated commercial real estate deals around the country, I maintained a
piano studio in Arlington, Virginia. I invite you to visit
www.mksconbrio.com
for a description of my studio activities.
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Family:
Steve is the
love of my life and my best friend after 46 years of marriage. My brother
Harry died in 1993, but his passions for music, history and fun
continue to inspire me. My brother Joel, who graduated from Rice in 1958,
recently celebrated his 50th Reunion at Washington University Medical
School in St. Louis. He divides his time between Waxahachie TX and Baden
bei Wien, Austria. We share many interests and see each other frequently.
I enjoy being an aunt to the four children he had with Janet Stokes. Steve
and I are close to his sister (who married his Rice roommate) in
California and to his cousins in Texas and Arkansas. Our daughter Lilli
(born 1971) got her Masters in Architecture from Harvard. She lives in
Cambridge MA with her daughter Violet (2009) and designs architectural
software for Autodesk. Son David (1973) graduated from Rice and Wharton
Business School. He is an IT entrepreneur who lives with his wife Leslie
in Coral Gables FL. Daughter Shelby, married to Sean Eidson, went to Emory
and University of Virginia Law School. She does legislative research from
her home in Dallas while raising Stephen (2007) and Thomas (2010). With
our family so scattered, I retired from teaching last December to have
more freedom to travel and grandparent.
Interests: I
take part in three book groups and a foreign policy discussion group, play
piano, and enjoy showing visitors around my favorite Washington museums.
Marjo and Carol Cochran and I have exchanged visits many times since
leaving Phillips. For the last 14 years, as a result of our PHS 35th
Reunion, I have enjoyed being in close touch with Carolyn Moore Rhea,
Carolyn Plumlee Kidd, Deanna Flanders Hein, Johnnie Morgan, Louise Hill
and Sandra Roscoe Stiles. I also keep up with several friends from Rice,
with the Austrian family who shared their home with me in the summer of
1965, and with some of the many foreign students we have hosted over the
years. In my local Methodist church my jobs have included teaching Sunday
School, directing the children’s choir, playing piano, singing in the
sanctuary choir, chairing numerous committees, serving on the Arlington
Interfaith Council and teaching English as a Second Language. Steve and I
are active in Rice alumni activities. His passion for golf has taken us to
many lovely places in the US and UK. With my daughters I have traveled to
Mexico, the Middle East and China. Only in Scotland, it seems to me, are
people as friendly as they are in the Panhandle of Texas.
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