Greg MacDonald: Catamount Board member since 2010, Catamount member forever, of which few things are!

My love of listening and moving to music probably began before I was even born since it was an integral part of the culture that I was born into. Although born in Boston, many of my summers were spent on my grandmother’s farm in a place called Antigonish, Nova Scotia, which has been hosting the Highland Games since the 1860’s. So between the haunting wail of the pipes from across the valley or the toe-tapping energy of a jig on a Cape Breton fiddle at a ceilidh, I was moved by the power of music at a very young age.

I came of age in Boston during the 1960’s and 1970’s and couldn’t help but be influenced by the politics and the music of those now nostalgic years. The times really were a changing and music was an integral part of those intense societal changes, particularly the civil rights and Viet Nam anti-war movements. Living across the river from Harvard Sq. and influenced by a little AM radio station called WCAS in Cambridge, my musical exposure ran the gamut from folk, reggae, blues to bluegrass, jazz, and rock and roll. An appreciator of live music to this day, I attend as many live musical events as I can.

After a tour of duty in Viet Nam, college, and travel, I settled in Vermont in 1980 and began a  satisfying career working for the Vermont Department of Corrections in various capacities. During this time I witnessed first hand the influence the arts can have in changing a person’s life. While working in the maximum security unit at the Northeast Regional Correctional Correctional facility in St. Johnsbury, I was fortunate enough to be involved in a program that allowed the inmates to tap into their creative artistic abilities. The inmates of that block painted expressive murals on the walls, wrote poetry, read their stories, and acted in role-plays that we filmed and discussed. Years later I had the honor of being involved in Bess O’Brien’s documentary film about heroin addiction, Here Today. To this day, the power of the arts was more influential than the power, and subsequent pain, of addiction for the people involved in that project!

Currently I am the Field Director for the State of Vermont Agency of Human Services and live in St. Johnsbury with my wife Penny and our children, Ian and Molly. About 22 years ago we were fortunate to buy back some property that originally belonged to Penny’s father and build a home. Little did we know at the time that Bob Amos would eventually become our neighbor. So when he asked me to join the Catamount Board, well there was that “good neighbor” thing, however it sounded like there was serious “fun potential” also. The more considerate factor though is my underlying belief that one of the responsibilities as a citizen of a community is that you must give back to that community so that the children have a healthy environment in which to thrive and evolve. The opportunity to serve on the Catamount Board allows me to give back to the arts, which has given so much to me and to the quality of life of our community. Thanks for asking Bob and thank you to all of those people who have supported Catamount Arts throughout the years by making a significant difference in our community!