Keys of His Success

On May 1, 2025April 30, 2025 By AnnIn Healing, Music and pianosLeave a comment

Emerson Talkington opens the lid on the grand piano and settles on the bench. His hands spread across the keys and exquisite music rises from the strings. From Chopin to Brahms to Rachmaninoff, he plays as if the piano is part of him. Days away from his college graduation, he’s on target to achieve a goal he’s dreamed about for years. From an unlikely and late start, Emerson has cleared more hurdles in the last decade than many people face in their entire lives.

Since the first commencement in June 1889, Southwestern College (SC) has held graduation exercises each spring. This year’s event is planned for May 4 at 2:30 in the Richard L. Jantz Stadium. As he receives his diploma for a Bachelor of Arts in Music that day, Emerson will join hundreds of alumni since that 1889 ceremony with degrees in Music. This year, he has the distinction to be the only music major. “And,” he says, “I’m the last one.”

Born in Winfield in 2002, he attended the local schools, graduating from Winfield High School with the class of 2020, in the Year of Covid. His love for piano began when he was a student at Winfield Middle School. The vocal music classroom housed a Mason & Hamlin grand piano donated from the estate of legendary pianist and teacher E. Marie Burdette. Emerson became fascinated with that piano and lingered after school most days in hopes of a chance to play it. His innate ability coupled with YouTube tutorial videos allowed him to pick out melodies by ear and the school’s music faculty encouraged him as his love for piano flourished.

Paige Camp, the vocal teacher at the time, says, “It seems like yesterday that he was a student in middle-level choir. He spent many days after school in the music hall, tinkering with the piano. I nicknamed him ‘Cling-on’ as he was usually there until we had to lock up for the day.”

Allen Dilley, band teacher, accompanist for the middle school choirs, and accomplished pianist himself, often used the Burdette piano after school for practicing. “Dr. Dilley introduced me to piano technique and music theory,” Emerson says.

“I first met Emerson in the vocal music room at WMS,” Dilley says. “Classes had concluded for the day and I recall practicing Chopin’s Scherzo in Bb minor—a challenging composition. A few days later Emerson was in the room playing excerpts from the same piece, albeit without having ever seen the music. I suggested that as he began his keyboard journey, he might want to start with something a little less intimidating.”

From the middle school choir, he went on to the WHS choir where he found another friend and mentor in accompanist Billy Bearden. Lacking the Burdette grand piano he’d enjoyed at the middle school, Emerson found a small console piano in a storeroom to tinker with. He often sought out Bearden for tips on piano performance.

It was during his senior year in high school that he encountered a huge obstacle in his path—he had cancer. Bearden shares, “[After] the diagnosis . . . there’s a moment for Emerson (or maybe a thousand of them) where it feels that the universe is playing a cruel joke.” However, Bearden notes that there’s a “miracle in the mundane: he keeps playing. Even when his physical pain makes it hard to sit up. Even when he’s told music is a waste of time, and when all he can hear in his head is how he started too late and he’s not good enough—Emerson keeps playing.”

Emerson tapped local jazz pianist and renowned performing artist Scott Williams as his first official private piano teacher. Williams says, “I began teaching Emerson between his sophomore and junior years of high school. This is later than most people start learning the piano, but I sensed right away how serious he was. He progressed quickly, and soon sounded like he had been playing much longer. It wasn’t that long before he started getting hired as a pianist.”

With the private lessons, his early mentors noticed his growing skill with jazz. Dilley notes, “His knowledge of chords and harmony and the ability to apply them to existing melodies is excellent. He showed me how to turn a well-known hymn into a “blues” piece!” The student turned into a teacher.

Paige Camp worked with him through high school. “He joined the high school jazz band, and later the symphonic band. There were hours of rehearsal and many performances. . . But despite the cancer diagnosis, he kept a very dry sense of humor about it all. And he kept playing the piano.”

Through the cancer and Covid chaos, he never quit playing. It was clear to him that music, through pianos, was his life’s calling and he embraced it with his whole heart. After he graduated from WHS, he enrolled with a scholarship in Cowley College as a music major. His first experience working with Cowley piano instructor Steve Butler was when he was a high school senior. He was asked to fill in as accompanist when Butler took over conducting the Cowley Singers at a concert. “I had a couple weeks to prepare, but I was still nervous,” Emerson recalls. Since that debut audition, he has performed many times for Butler, including as a duet partner. “Playing duets with Steve brought out my best,” Emerson says.

Pastor at Hackney Baptist church as well as music instructor at Cowley College, Butler considers Emerson a good friend and has been pleased to recommend him when people ask for a keyboard artist.

During the semesters at Cowley, Emerson also became the proud owner of that E. Marie Burdette Mason & Hamlin grand piano. Covid prompted staff changes at USD 465, and the new music staff members were willing to transfer the custody and maintenance of that gem of a piano to the school alumnus who had fallen in love with music through it. Emerson kept playing on the original mesmerizing instrument.

He transferred to Southwestern College as a music major with a piano performance emphasis but soon after he enrolled, Southwestern announced it was terminating its music degree program. To its credit, the college committed to completing the degrees of the majors that were currently enrolled and Emerson persevered.

Cancer struck again with a vengeance later that same fall, and delayed his coursework while he battled the relapse at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Fellow cancer survivor and associate professor of music at Southwestern College Jeremy Kirk said, “Living through chemo as he did—twice—influences your tenacity. You have to be tenacious. There’s a feeling that: If I can do this, there’s nothing I can’t do.”

Returning months later with his cancer in remission, Emerson picked up where he’d left off, married Rosalyn, the love of his life, and with support from the music faculty and the college administration, he continued his pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts in Music. His grit and determination impressed the staff at Southwestern to the point where the instructors were as determined as Emerson to fulfill his goal.

Professor Kirk shares his insights. “Emerson possesses first rate music talent and he seeks opportunities for growth as a musician outside his comfort zone.” As a student in Kirk’s World Music class, he joined the performing ensemble and traveled to Hawaii with the group in December 2022. He participated in the jazz and pep bands at SC, served as librarian for the South Kansas Symphony, took private organ lessons from James Leland, and even helped Leland with the day-to-day maintenance of the pipe organ in Richardson Performing Arts Center. He completed his coursework mostly through online classes and independent studies, but he never gave up and never quit playing.

In addition to a bustling student schedule, Emerson supported himself through the years with a variety of outside jobs. His interest in automobile mechanics secured him a job as a manager at O’Reilly’s for a while. He also worked in fast food places, installed signs for Cardinal Signs, did custodial work, served as the accompanist at area churches including a couple years as organist at Winfield’s First Presbyterian Church, and as the accompanist at Ark City Middle School for the last four years. He also has a few piano students of his own.

Leland says, “I have unparalleled appreciation for the noble and realistic way he worked through college. He is conscientious about finishing any work he starts.”

Emerson has triumphed through all the challenges the universe threw at him. Bearden, his accompanist pal during high school, says, “It wasn’t triumph in any grandiose sense—no concerts or sudden label deals—but it was something better: a private rebellion, a refusal to quit. Each day he chose the small and seemingly insignificant choice to create beauty in a world that kept offering pain.”

And he became more than just a student. “He became an artist,” Bearden says.

With graduation approaching, he prepares to launch into his next chapter of life. Emerson will join fellow SC music alumni Butler (1997) and Bearden (2005) as well as hundreds of musicians with roots at Southwestern College who became dedicated schoolteachers in small towns and cities across the nation, performed with respected symphonies, taught in colleges and universities, or worked as church musicians and composers.

For the immediate future, he plans to travel this summer, to embrace as much of life’s opportunities as possible. “I want to travel while I can. I might not make it through a third cancer occurrence.”

When he is home, Emerson plans a public performance where he will share his spark for life. Details will be announced later. He plans to expand his studio to offer more private lessons, and hopes to teach music at an area school. He is interested in piano technology and wants to eventually rebuild the Mason & Hamlin piano that opened the world of music to him.

Kirk feels certain that Emerson will have success with whatever he chooses to pursue because of the qualities of his personality. What are those qualities? According to those who know him well he is flexible, humble, inquisitive, compassionate, and kind. With a gentle nature, he is always there to help a friend—a good recipe for success in any situation.

For now, each of his instructors feels what Steve Butler expresses, “To have played a small part in his musical and spiritual growth gives me great joy!” His hometown and expanded community join the instructors to wish him the best as he graduates with his coveted BA degree in music, with an emphasis in piano performance.

Day 5: Never Lose Hope

On October 11, 2020 By AnnIn Activism, Earth care, Healing, Letters to Septanna, Loss and GriefLeave a comment

Dear Tanna,

I have limited experience with hospice workers. My mother was on hospice before she died and my dad was deeply grateful for the compassionate assistance the workers brought to their home. This concept of providing dignity to those facing imminent death is fairly recent. There was nothing like that available for me three decades ago when my husband struggled with cancer.

It seems somewhat audacious, maybe even preposterous, to think that those responsible for the decline of our planet’s life systems would dare to consider themselves hospice workers. How could agents of death possibly bring compassion and dignity to the decline of the climate conditions that support all life forms on Earth?

When I am in a down mood, I see humanity as a species that needs to go, in order to save the rest. Nature needs to eliminate her threat and we are the major cause of today’s destruction. Those who care seem to have little influence on the those in leadership positions. We are caught in a system that we cannot seem to change, trapped like animals in a live trap.

As a young widow, years ago, I taught earth science at the local high school when I was struggling to find a new life and purpose. I tried to infuse awareness of the decline of the environment in the teenagers. Considering all of geologic history, today’s situation apparently is not the first time that a life form created mass extinction through its waste products. The waste product for early single-celled life in the oceans was oxygen. Through proliferation, the simple metabolic processes of early life changed the composition of the atmosphere, paving the way for new life to evolve.

Geologically and astronomically speaking, our solar system is roughly halfway through the sun’s expected life. Given a few more billion years, there should be plenty of time for new life to evolve from the scraps left after this climate crisis settles into a new equilibrium. Am I comforted by this thought?

I have mixed feelings about it. When I watch neighbors roar past my Prius on the highway in 4-wheel drive fuel-guzzling pick-ups, or watch Styrofoam cups blow into the tall grasses along the road, or see trash, littered by passing motorists, build up around our small pond at the corner of two paved roads, I think to myself, “Humans are such slobs. Maybe it’s time. Nature is out to rectify our wrongs.” If we view the entire planet as one living organism, we humans, through our collective ignorance and apathy, are a disease to the planet, like its terminal cancer.

Then I talk to cherished friends who suffer anguish at the exploitation of the natural world, or I work with my piano students to help them master skills that will enable them to express themselves through music, or I watch my grandson playing with the baby goats in our front yard, and I am reminded that “We aren’t all bad.”

The eras of geologic history are separated by mass extinctions, as witnessed in the fossil records. PreCambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic. Based also on the geologic record, the previous eras were millions of years in duration. We are responsible for the mass extinction we are witnessing now, and it’s happening much more rapidly than any we have evidenced in the rock records. If we compare all of geologic history to a half-mile walk, humans appeared mere inches before the end that represents today. From the first appearance of a human to now encompasses a few seconds on a 24-hour clock that represents Earth’s history.

To disregard and exploit everything on the planet for selfish reasons, with no check on ourselves, empathy for other species, or consideration for future generations, has got to be the biggest crime against this remarkable and fragile speck of a planet in the cosmos. We are guilty of that crime. Our lifestyles trap us in a system that is dooming life as we know it.

Nobody knows what will come of the situation we face today, but I have to wonder how we are any different from those early single cell life forms? One way is this: We know what we’re doing. Science has instruments to measure the health of our planet, and to record its ruin. Yet we seem unable to stop our actions. Assuming that the early life lacked thought processes and their waste contamination was purely accidental and a product of their success, I have to think this is vastly more irresponsible. To know and not to take steps to stop the atmospheric decline surely is an unpardonable sin.

Tanna, with the weight of this responsibility on our shoulders, how can we possibly presume to act as hospice workers in Earth’s decline?

I struggle to remind myself that we humans are as much a part of the universe as the meadowlarks and coyotes and deer and butterflies. And I also remember, through my mother’s experience with hospice, that it’s entirely possible to reverse the diagnosis. Mother was admitted to hospice, not once, but three times before she passed from this life. The first two times, she got better and was released. So hospice doesn’t always carry despair and finality with it. The challenge becomes restoring dignity, and easing the decline. Maybe—maybe—with enough of us working toward a solution, we can drawdown the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere and restore the climate to one where life as we know it can thrive.

Hope is the other part of hospice. We must never lose hope. That’s why I’m writing these letters to you.

I love nature for the answers it suggests. How do we move towards the light? The prairie suggests, no matter how bad things may look, “Bloom anyway.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested that “Earth Laughs in Flowers.”

I don’t laugh often enough, but when I do, it’s wonderful. Laughter is healing, as documented by Norman Cousins when he postponed his predicted demise by embarking on a process of regular daily laughter. Perhaps we should all do what we can to encourage flowers to bloom, to tickle the planet and laugh with nature.

I think it’s unlikely that any one effort of mine will make a difference for the planet. However, added to other efforts, we will make a difference. Maybe individual actions don’t matter much, but they count for something. If we do nothing, we are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

This is absolutely an exciting time to be alive. We are on the edge of tomorrow, of a time when the course of history will be determined by our collective actions. Will we prevail? Will we assist nature to overcome this dire threat?

One thing that I plan to do very soon is vote. I will vote for candidates who are on the record for their commitment to act for the climate. I will vote for the Earth.

In the end, everything that we do matters. Every decision we make, every product we select, and every choice we make to fill our minutes will matter for the future. Through action, hope is born and hope is crucial to redemption. Never forget that. Never lose hope. To do so would cement the terminal diagnosis of the planet.

With enduring love,

Your seventh-generation Grandmother

It’s here!

On June 29, 2014 By AnnIn Healing, Loss and Grief, Writing4 Comments

Yesterday, the arrival of my copies of In the Shadow of the Wind signaled a rite of passage for me. My book, a glossy paperback with my name on the front and my photo on the back, is finally done. But my journey is far from complete. Will anybody want to read it? And if they do, will they treat it with favor? Perhaps I’ll never know, but the story is there, offered for anyone who might be struggling, who has experienced the tragic loss of a loved one far too soon in life. I feel a little arrogant to think that anyone would want to read a memoir of my life. After all, who am I? I’m just Ann, plain and ordinary.

Perhaps this describes the vast majority of us. Within our small circles of life, each of us makes our mark. We live. We love. And we die. Some of us complete the circle sooner than others. Some of us travel parts of the circle more than once. Most of us, sooner or later, will feel the pain of a loved one’s death and question what purpose remains in our empty lives. And we must find a way forward. Anticipating questions from friends who read the story, I offer answers in advance.

Q: How long does it take to write a book?

A: This one? Thirty years. In the Shadow of the Wind was a project begun decades ago, in another place and another time in my life. When events of life intervened, and my new life started, I put this project away and literally forgot about it. Without the detailed journals I wrote at the time the events occurred, it would have been impossible to write this memoir.

Q: Why did you decide to write it now?

A: In 2010, my father died suddenly after a heart attack. He had supported me during my earlier losses with unconditional love and encouragement. At his memorial service, I mentioned how much it meant to me when he endorsed my forty day retreat into the wilderness. Afterward, people wanted to know more about the retreat. It was like somebody from beyond tapped me on the shoulder to say, “It’s time. Write.” Perhaps it was a last gift from my father. Perhaps Craig himself had something to do with it. But at that moment, I knew my life had just changed. I would write again.

Q: A lot of the chapters in your memoir are very personal. How can you put such personal, private details out there for strangers to read?

A: I think a story like this has to be personal, or it will be very dull. Readers need to feel the emotions, to laugh and cry with the writer, in order for the writing to ring true. Yes, it’s personal. Some of it is so personal that I didn’t tell a soul about it when it happened. But I did tell my journal. And the story is about a different me, the young woman of three decades ago. As I worked with these words, I could feel what she felt, and think her thoughts, but it was almost like they belonged to somebody else. Perhaps the insulation of time, the passage of these decades, was necessary. I couldn’t have written it when the emotions were fresh. It was too painful.

Q: How do you know you’ve been called to write?

A: Just a feeling, I think. How does a pastor know he or she has been called to preach? There is a notion from within, a driving force you can’t ignore. And then there are some signs along the way.

I like to think the Great Spirit still speaks to us. The timing of events at two places in my life led me to believe that someone somewhere was sending me a message. When Craig and I lived through repeated crises, the arrival of Phoebe Dawn was a miracle. Timing was critical. She was born on March 2, 1984. We met her and brought her home on March 5, three days later. Before the end of March, Craig was in the hospital. Had she been an April baby, we’d never have met the precious child who gave Craig the inspiration and drive to fight for his life and gave me purpose to carry on after he was gone. I thought, and still do, she was a gift from God.

Q: And the second place when you felt a supernatural nudge?

A: That has to do with my efforts to record the story over the last four years. During the year following my father’s death, the very same pastor who had been with us through the loss of our babies, who had preached at their graveside services, came back into my life. He was sent to my current church. I felt it was a sign.

Additionally the year 2012 was the year I was pulling the story from my journals. Much of the tale takes place in 1984, a leap year. The year 2012 also was a leap year, the seventh leap year since 1984, and the very first year since then when the calendar days exactly meshed with the days of the week all year long. As I wrote, it was almost as if I was reliving that time twenty-eight years ago. Every event became vivid in my mind. Coincidence? Perhaps. But if so, a strange one I could never have foreseen.

Q: Where do you go from here?

A: I’m not sure. The books are printed. Once again, my shy nature balks at putting them out for strangers to read. But if someone wants a copy, they are available. Someday, there may be an e-version. That will be another adventure for me, a new learning experience.

Q: You’d just let the books sit in your closet?

A: I still find it a little bit hard to believe anyone would actually want to read it. I have been operating for the last four years under the premise that I was supposed to write the book. I was directed—ordered—to do it. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Somebody somewhere needed my story or would need it. When it was ready, they would be led to it somehow.

As I get older, I find fewer and fewer things that I am certain of. There are so many differences among us, so many opinions, so many arguments. But one thing I still firmly believe is that we are here to help each other. Whether neighbors in our home towns need assistance, or people in Bangladesh and the Maldives who are watching their homes disappear under a rising sea, we are called to help.

Other creatures might need help too. Perhaps a wild kitten has fallen between bales in a haystack, Monarch butterflies can’t find the milkweed they need to feed new generations, the birds on Midway Island strangle in human trash, or the arctic ice of the polar bears recedes further every summer. These fellow passengers on spaceship Earth also beg for assistance.

Or maybe it’s a mother, grieving for a lost child, or a young widow facing an uncertain future. If we’re not here to help, what are we doing here anyway? The needs are there. The opportunities to get involved are endless.

Q: Do you have any parting words?

A: My wish for each of you is that you will be able to meet the winds of your life head-on, and learn how to soar through troubled times.

For myself, I feel most satisfied when my days include time spent writing. I’ve already started a novel about a piano tuner who solves a mystery by uncovering clues hidden in various pianos she tunes. It’s received hearty endorsements from instructors at two writing workshops I attended this summer, and I’m excited to continue writing. I’ll have to step up my time table, however. I may not be around for another three decades—and I have more ideas hatching all the time.

Q: What about your memoir? What’s it really about?

A: A short summary of In the Shadow of the Wind: A Story of Love, Loss and Finding Life Again:

Following a series of tragic losses, thirty-year old Ann Darr struggles alone in a strange and frightening world. The young widow and bereaved mother retreats to the wilderness for comfort and healing. Planning to stay forty days, she sets up a solitary camp on the river bank of her family’s abandoned farm homestead. Marooned by rising flood waters after only a few days, she faces her own mortality.

There is life after loss. Through a sequence of extraordinary events, In the Shadow of the Wind tells how one ordinary woman learns to dance on the threshold of fear, to cherish every moment of life, and to believe in her inner resources to conquer adversity.

Q: Where can I find a copy of this book?

A: Right now, they are in my closet. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, either reply to this post or send me a private message on Facebook (Ann Fell, FHSU) to let me know how to reach you.

The Bridge

Tag: cancer