SUU to Living Legend

With a gift for recognizing the good in all things and then contributing to the improvement of the world around her, Mary Jane Seaman, who will celebrate her 98^th birthday this October, is the 2019 recipient of Carmen Rose Hepworth Alumni Award which is presented annually at Thunderbird Awards.

Born the third of four children to William Warner and Georgia Brown Mitchell in Parowan, Utah, Mary Jane was an outdoor player and loved climbing in the trees and playing in the loft. She particularly enjoyed baseball and was typically found on the pitcher’s mound where she earned the nickname of “duck-legs” due to her short appendages.

An accomplished pianist, Mary Jane began taking lessons at a young age and soon discovered that she loved the piano and even enjoyed practicing. Her natural talents at the keyboard became evident at the young age of 12, when she went to her customary piano lesson after a long day at school and discovered she had forgotten her piano book. Unfazed, she proceeded with her lesson and played each piece perfectly from memory. Mary Jane later furthered her piano training by taking a six-week course in Salt Lake City at the well-respected McCune School of Music.

While a student at the Branch Agricultural College (BAC), Mary Jane earned money playing the piano for Professor LaVeve Whetten’s dance classes. LaVeve would set the rhythm to the dance she was improvising, and then Mary Jane would improvise by creating the music to which the class would dance. She earned $1 a class; each generally lasted one hour and sometimes stretched to three hours.

Her expertise on the piano landed her opportunities to play with dance bands, string quartets, and even to accompany a ladies trio that took second place in a national competition in Miami, Florida. She has been an in-demand accompanist for many local vocalists, has played with finesse and beauty in her church congregations, and for decades played “The Grand Old BAC” at the annual Homecoming Banquet.

Mary Jane thoroughly loved her student experience at the BAC and enjoyed fellow classmates and professors who knew each other and always welcomed one-on-one visits. Today she remains devoted to her alma mater and is a constant influence for good at University events and festivities. She was a longtime volunteer at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and has generously contributed to numerous causes that have elevated this institution and its students.

She wed Grant Seaman, a forest ranger by profession, in 1940, and together they raised six children, four of whom are graduates of SUU.