Hello Rotarians! Good to see you again!

 

President Vera McKissic opened our meeting without her powerful ring of the bell, because we were in the smaller room today! Dwight McKissic led us in our opening prayer and the pledge of allegiance. We sang “God Bless America” accompanied by pianist Janie Johnson. Our greeters: Jason Kazarian and Vera McKissic.

 

Announcements:

 

New member Claudia Perkins received her blue badge today! Her sponsor was Stephanie Melchert and her mentor was April Pettit.

 

Mac Martin led us in singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas!” Birthdays: Holly Hattendorf Maxwell May 11, Elvie Ononobi May 15, Leslie Garvis May 16, as well as Diego Penia. Anniversaries: Jeff Williams 25 years May 11, Robert Shepard 26 years May 13.

 

Today’s program, introduced by Stacey Bridger: Letatia Teykl, Executinve Director of the Levitt Pavillion, Summer season 2025. Letacia attended high school in Arlington at Sam Houston,  then attended UTA and Texas Wesleyan.

 

The Levitt Pavilion is an outdoors venue that provides 50 concerts per season, free of charge, for the enjoyment of all! However, the professional performers who play at the Levitt are most certainly paid their usual performance fees, which is one of the reasons why fundraising is a must. Over $320k per season is spent on the artists. Safety and security is also one of the most expensive items for the Levitt. Another way of fundraising is that the Levitt can be rented. The top 3 donors are the Levitt Foundation, Arlington Culture and Tourism Council, and Baylor Scott and White.

 

Letatia urged us to not shy away from attending a concert if we don’t know the artist, because they really do search out the best, and not everyone can know all artists! A great bonus is that the Levitt has nice indoors restrooms, as well as an air conditioned hospitality room.

 

 

One of  Letatia Teykl’s earliest memories was attending a Willie Nelson concert at the old, old Arlington Stadium. Her parents were — and remain — big music fans and instilled that love in her as well. “Lyle Lovett is a dream get of mine,” she said. But Teykl’s career path led her to banking, retail and the Mansfield Chamber of Commerce as well as other endeavors until 2019, when she was asked to take the helm at the nonprofit Levitt Pavilion Arlington.

 

“I mean, here I am, not far from that memory of seeing Willie Nelson and I get to bring music — free music — to Arlington and Fort Worth,” said the 59-year-old corporate banker turned music venue director. Along with attending plenty of concerts — including some memorable ones at Fort Worth’s lamented Caravan of Dreams — Teykl even incorporated music into her volunteer work at the Byron Nelson Golf Tournament when, during the pro-am, she would have women serenade golfers on certain holes to raise funds for the Salesmanship Club. “It’s like music has always been there,” she said. 

 

Teykl took the helm of the Levitt in late 2019. Shortly after she started, one of her first responsibilities was to respond to the pandemic. As part of that response, she introduced live-streamed concerts. It wasn’t easy. The Levitt had no archived content. “We had to create our own,” she said.

 

She reached out to Fort Worth’s Brad Thompson, of Brad Thompson and the Undulating Band, for the first of several pieces of video content.  “We improvised with cell phones, but we got it done,” she said. “We’re more sophisticated now.” The fact that the Levitt Pavilion is an outdoor facility was an asset  during the pandemic. “With spacing, we could do a lot,” she said. “We did graduations, that sort of thing. We really proved our worth, I think.”

 

Teykl also took the helm when the Levitt Pavilion, which opened in 2008, was finishing its first major expansion with the addition of a new hospitality center that added restrooms — replacing the portables used previously — and a hospitality center on the second floor for sponsors, guests and special events.

 

The hospitality center was designed by Fort Worth firm Ibañez Shaw Architecture with construction by Arlington’s J. Hutcherson Construction. Bart Shaw, architect, said the most challenging aspect was how to maximize the space and provide a facility that would be a showcase and enhance the vibrancy of downtown Arlington.

 

“The idea of putting a hospitality suite on top of a restroom building was tricky,” he said. “We needed to maximize the space on that corner and yet meet all the needs of the facility.” The interior includes panels to maximize the acoustics of the space, even down to the air vents, said Teykl. “The regular vent made a little ‘hiss’ sound,” she said. “They fixed it with this beautifully designed vent. I love that.” 

 

The space gives businesses and organizations a new option for meetings, retreats, workshops and receptions. The hospitality suite and the new restrooms also make the Levitt appealing as the site for fun runs and 5Ks, fundraisers, events and festivals.“We’re a community space,” said Teykl. “This new building just emphasizes that.”

 

Arlington Mayor Jim Ross feels Teykl is not afraid to ask for broad support for the Levitt mission.  “Two qualities I particularly respect about Letatia’s leadership of the Levitt are her passion and tenacity,” he said. “She’s an enthusiastic advocate for everything related to what she and I have dubbed ‘The Levitt 2.0,’ referring to the Levitt’s ongoing development as an important community gathering space and economic driver.” 

 

As part of that next chapter in the Levitt Pavilion Arlington story, Teykl has opened the Levitt to many additional community events and local music acts.  “I kind of put on my banker hat and looked at all the money we were paying for lights and sound for the acts and thought, ‘We’re spending that money. Why can’t we have local acts on first? We’re already paying for the lights and sound?’ And that’s what we did,” she said.

 

They added local musicians as part of the Levitt’s “Share the Stage” initiative promoting North Texas talent. The local acts can now share the stage with emerging talent and original artists from a range of music genres, many of them Grammy Award winners.  “The program allows local artists to get exposure and lets them interact with other musical acts on their way up,” she said.

 

Noted as a signature destination and performing arts centerpiece for Downtown Arlington, the Levitt plays a significant role in Downtown Arlington’s designation as a Cultural District by the State of Texas and Arlington’s designation as a Music Friendly Community by the Texas Music Office. “I’m really proud of that because, growing up here, I know for a long time Arlington — and downtown Arlington — wasn’t thought of in that way,” she said.

 

The Levitt is also home to community celebrations, which is another area Teykl plans to expand.  “We are trying to encourage not just the same 300 to 1,000 people to show up every weekend but to provide programming that is inclusive and offers something for everybody — so that everybody not only feels welcome here, but there’s something they want to do, that they want to experience and be part of,” she said.

 

On Oct. 28, 2023, the Levitt hosted the biggest Nepali event  outside of Nepal, the MoMo Festival 2023. It included music as well as international icon, U.K. MasterChef finalist Santosh Shah. Over 8,000 attended the event. Teykl expects more this year.

 

While many think it is a city-owned venue, the Levitt Pavilion program was created with support from the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, which partners with nonprofits to present free music series around the country. The Levitt Pavilion Arlington is one of seven pavilion sites, while another 33 sites use existing spaces for their concert series.

 

“We’re not a city-owned site, though we do work with them and are involved with them. But we’re a nonprofit working to provide a community space,” she said.  And the community shows up to the space that can hold about 3,500. The Levitt Pavilion just held its opening concert for the season on Sept. 2.

 

Teykl feels the Levitt is doing something that is needed in the current culture: bringing people together.  “Music does that and here we have this great space, this great space where we can come together,” she said. “I think it’s very important.”

 

See the Levitt website for the summer 2025 concert and event schedule. A book was donated to the Webb Elementary School library in honor of Letatia.

 

Quote of the week:  “The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same.” Aaron Copland, composer of great music.

 

Vera led us in the Four Way Test and we were dismissed. Next week’s speaker will be Ann Salyer-Caldwell from Immunization Collaboration of Tarrant County.