Updated: 23 April 2008

Did you ever have a really lucky day?  The Black Rose Acoustic Society (BRAS) sure did.  It was the day thirteen years ago when Ron and Tina Thomas first stepped through the door of the Black Forest Community Center to attend an open stage.   Tina had noticed an ad in the Gazette about BRAS and suggested that son Benjamin go give it a try.  He came back shortly and said, “It wasn’t for me but you two might like it.”  Well folks, Tina and Ron did like it and did they ever like it.  BRAS open stages became their bi-weekly musical outing.   Almost instantly Charlie Hall nabbed them to help out and they were glad to do it.  Ron served on the board and as an officer for thirteen years.  Tina was a faithful Kitchen Rose.

Thirteen years ago BRAS was a fledgling organization.   It was just getting started and almost everyone who came participated by volunteering to help out.  Ron remembers the unique atmosphere of the place.  “There was a sense of community.  It was almost an underground thing.  People found out about it mostly by word of mouth.  It was a neat thing that not everyone knew about.  It was like a church social without the preaching.”

Ron dedicated more than a decade to BRAS.  He deserves a great deal of credit for the wonderful run BRAS has enjoyed.  Ron was the go-to guy for the last several years.  Almost every question and concern ended up in his inbox.  You have seen Ron everywhere at BRAS but like the proverbial iceberg, so many of his jobs were done behind the scenes.  It is hard to even imagine what he has done for us because all of the jobs required much time and effort.  Ron was a board member for thirteen years; treasurer, taking care of taxes and credit card transactions, president, stage manager, MC for open stages and concerts, concert manager, Benet Hill liaison, workshop manager and membership liaison.  He developed the BRAS Scholarship Program, managed Benet Hill studio rentals, set-up the BRAS voicemail and BRAS feedback email.  Ron organized the Christmas party, prepared all volunteer recognition certificates and wrote for the newsletter.  He set up for open stages, concerts, and special events and closed up afterwards after sweeping, mopping and putting away the stage and the chairs.  Ron’s love of music and belief in the goals of BRAS kept him volunteering all of those years.

Ron grew up in El Centro, California, twelve miles north of the Mexican border.  Both sets of his adventuresome great grandparents came across the country in covered wagons.  Ron will “never forgive” the ones who first landed in Oregon then moved to the California desert.  “They came to Southern California for health reasons seeking a dryer climate.”  Ron would have preferred Oregon.  He calls his hometown “Stinking Desert, California.”  That name stuck with his boys.  At an elementary school parent- teacher conference for his younger son the teacher said, “So, Jonathan tells me you’re from Stinking Desert, California.”

Ron left the desert when his state senator nominated him to the Air Force Academy.  Here Ron met Springs native Tina.  “I first met Tina at a squadron party.  She was dating a friend.  I didn’t ask her out for a year though.  I waited until the guy was about to graduate and asked if it would be okay for me to call her.”  Ron and Tina  became engaged during his senior year and married the day after graduation.  Ron threw his hat in the air and caught the garter, so to speak.  Ron and Tina have two sons, Benjamin and Jonathan.   

At flight training school at Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Texas they discovered Ron’s eyes were not up to standard for flying.  Asked what else he would like to do, Ron chose communications.  The training has served him well.  He is now in a project management group doing wide area network and server installations at Verizon.  Tours in Mississippi, Kansas, Colorado Springs, Germany and Turkey preceded two tours at the Pentagon.  There he worked at the National Defense Intelligence Agency Communication Center and then at USAF headquarters.  “I earned my Master’s Degree in EE in the back of a carpool van commuting from Woodbridge, Virginia to the Pentagon.”

Ron has performed on the BRAS stage with his sons, in different groups, in the Band Scrambles and as a solo performer.  You may remember his entertaining Cowboy Poetry set a while back.  “I like cowboy music and old folk songs.  Some of us had a cowboy jam for a while.  I enjoyed that.  I took fiddle lessons from Hope (Grietzer) before she left.  It was bad when Hope moved away.  She was so encouraging.”  The funniest thing that ever happened to Ron on stage came when he was announcing the open stage acts one evening.  He was thanking the Kitchen Roses and forgot Tina’s name.  Uh oh.  Ron likes to build instruments also.  He has made a fiddle, a mandolin and a ukulele.  Another fiddle and a ukulele are in progress.  Along with that, Ron is taking a break but he will come back.  You’ll see him and Tina at some of the open stages before long.  In the meantime he is enjoying the free time.  “I have more time to play now and have even taken up the fiddle again.”  He is looking forward to more fishing, too.  He will keep a lot of music in his life.  I would like to thank Ron for all the music he put into our lives for over thirteen years.  I’d say we all had lots of luck when Ron came to the Black Rose Acoustic Society.  Ron, you and Tina enjoy your much-deserved time off.  See you soon.       

Phyllis Stark