April 9, 2015

Dolores Barzune

Dolores was born in 1939 in Alice, Texas, and raised in Hebbronville, a small town between Alice and Laredo in Deep South Texas. She describes her parents as the king and queen of the town, her mother a forward thinking career woman with a great financial mind who ran a chain of department stores, and her father a rancher. She was the big sister to a younger sister and brother. Her grandmother, her mother's mother and the most recent immigrant among her grandparents, largely raised her while her mother worked. She recalled a paternalistic household on her father's side, where her stern grandfather, called Papa, presided while the men, women, and children ate separately.

Dolores loved growing up in Hebbronville and attended all schools there, excelling as both a basketball player and a pianist. After high school she attended Del Mar College on a full music scholarship for her freshman year, then transferred to the University of Texas at her father's urging so she could strengthen her writing. During her first year there she met Larry on a blind date and fell in love almost immediately. While Larry pursued medical school and became a surgeon, Dolores taught third and fourth grade, work she loved dearly. Their son Ben was born while Larry was still in school, and Dolores later returned to Denton to pursue further degrees.

When she stopped teaching, Dolores found a new calling in fundraising, beginning with the junior Symphony League and going on to raise money for nearly every arts institution in Dallas. She chaired the city's Cultural Affairs Commission for eight years under Mayors Ron Kirk and another mayor. She helped lead the effort to build the Meyerson Symphony Center, working on the architect selection committee chaired by Stanley Marcus and prizing above all the hall's acoustics. A lover of classical music all her life, she also converted to Judaism, a step she found deeply meaningful and undertook for herself. She and Larry raised their children and later had three grandchildren, and she urged the next generation to stay as involved as possible.

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