Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 28, 1990 TAG: 9005280140
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
It started him on his career as an international opera star.
Austin, who returned home to be the commencement speaker at Wytheville Community College's graduation, also took time for performance at George Wythe High School with his wife, Alteouise DeVaughn. Austin, a tenor, and DeVaughn, a mezzo-soprano, met when they were in a production together.
They brought their mothers on stage and credited them for the push and support to make the most of their talents.
Hontas Austin had always said her son had a good singing voice. He even used it to win a talent show at age 6. But Austin was better known for his football talents when he went to Emory & Henry College in the early 1970s.
Wytheville Community College President William Snyder had invited Austin to be the graduation speaker last year, but Austin, who had been performing throughout Europe, already had a commitment for that date. Maybe another time, he wrote back. Two weeks later, he heard from Snyder again: How about next year?
This time, he accepted. And then he was invited to be the leading tenor in a production of "Carmen" in Munich, with rehearsals starting in May. "I'm sorry; I'm already booked," he told the opera group doing "Carmen." Another invitation came for him to reprise one of his roles in a new production in Hamburg. Again, he declined.
"I've been invited to give the commencement address at my hometown college," Austin said. "To me, that is the most important thing."
Reading from handwritten notes, Austin told the nearly 260 graduates why he felt being in Wytheville was important.
"I came here as a friend - a friend who was concerned about the future of America," he said. "America is a great country. But there are those in other countries who say America has had its day."
He said they see America as a land overflowing with drugs, where the educational system is doomed, where racism is rampant. Austin's message was that people like the community college graduates - black and white, old and young - must come together to change all that.
Having worked last year in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Russia, he said, "Believe me, my friends, life there is quite different from the good old U.S.A." But freedom is not guaranteed, he said, and people here must guard it and not take it for granted.
by CNB