Biography of Susan Tuft:

Susan was born to Delwin and Luana Stevens in Billings, Montana. Her parents moved to Fort Collins, Colorado and then to Ithaca, New York, where her father pursued his education, eventually obtaining a Ph.D. in agricultural economics.

Most of Susan’s growing up years were in Laramie, Wyoming. Her father was a professor at the University of Wyoming. She is a loyal Cowboy fan and Wyoming tourism booster. She got a bachelor of arts degree in nursing from the University of Wyoming and then roomed with cousins in Provo, Utah who were attending BYU. She got a job as a registered nurse at Utah Valley Hospital on the pediatrics ward and eventually worked as a school nurse and nurse a children’s dude ranch in the high Rockies of Colorado during the summers.

Just as she decided to get a master’s degree in pediatric nursing at the University of Utah, she met Steven Tuft, then a law student at the University of Utah, and they were married in 1973. After both of their graduations and the birth of child number one, Gwen, they moved to Burley and have lived here since 1975. Their other four children, Mark, David, Karen and Paul were born in Burley. Her professional nursing gave way to running her own pediatrics ward . They have three grandsons and a grandchild of yet to be discovered gender on the way.

Susan has been involved in various community endeavors, including the Community Concert Association, of which she has been president since 1995. She is also a member of the advisory board of the King Fine Arts Center and she has been involved in several projects with the Burley Library, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalition, supervisor of the volunteer program of the LDS Social Services adoption services program for all of Magic Valley, as well as fulfilling several assignments and responsibilities in her church.

There is no question that the Community Concert organization has been near and dear to her heart. The association books famous and talented artists who would never otherwise come to a community like Burley, Idaho. But with the economies of scale, the organization obtains their services at much reduced fees. That allowed smaller communities to enjoy big city entertainment at small town prices. The local affiliates, like Burley’s “Mini-Cassia Community Concert Association”, contracted with the parent organization for artists on tour. The Mini-Cassia Community Concert Organization was first launched in 1946 and has been providing quality entertainment in this community since.

For years, the Community Concert organization was owned by Columbia Artists. It was sold to Trawick Productions. In late 2002, Trawick Productions ran into financial difficulties and stopped paying the artists, even those still out on tour. It would be an understatement to say that chaos ensued. Artists were reluctant to honor contracts as it appeared they would never be paid and some refused to appear unless the local organizations would pay their fees directly. But, the local community concerts affiliates had already paid in advance for those performances. In order to get the special deals, the local organization “buys” the entire season’s performance almost a year in advance.

Susan immediately got in touch with the presidents of other local organizations and worked out a plan to bargain directly with the unpaid artists and provide them with compensation to finish their tours for that season. Some were very bitter about not being paid, but all were anxious that the financial failure of Trawick Productions not end the Community Concert tradition. Susan spent countless hours on the phone with agents and artists getting them to finish the tour and to perform in Burley. She convinced other organizations to do the same so that the artists would have more than one performance venue.

Once that the 2002-3 season was accomplished and the concerts were miraculously held, the next question was: what about next year? The secret to the success of community concerts on the local level was no secret at all – it was volume buying by several communities of concert tours. Former sales representatives of the Trawick organization offered to fulfill the role on their own, but it quickly became obvious that if the economies of scale were to be maintained, most of the local community concert organizations would simply have to go under one banner. The most promising successor organization was “Live On Stage”. Susan spent again countless hours on the phone and burning up the lines with e-mails making deals and getting participation in this organization so it could offer a program similar to the one in the past.

Unfortunately, several local Community Concert affiliates simply could not make the transition. Too much chaos and too much money being tied up in concerts that were never performed caused several to close their doors. Several years ago, the Pocatello organization ceased to exist and the Twin Falls organization couldn’t survive the hit from this turmoil and it ceased operations as well.

During the transition, before Live On Stage could “take over”, Susan assumed the role of booking agent and contacted artists directly and made deals to have the come to Burley and got other local organizations to use the same artists so that cost-effective tours could be arranged. She learned a lot about negotiation, entertainment contracts and out and out flattering of big-named talent in order to get them to put Burley on their tour maps during 2003-4. She was even able to wheedle the locally popular “Bar J Wranglers” of Jackson Hole, Wyoming to come to Burley last year.

It would be unfair to suggest that her competent and able board of directors didn’t sweat this one out with her and offer much help and moral support.

The organization survived and Mini-Cassia Community Concerts, affiliated now with Live On Stage, remains part of the Burley-Rupert cultural arts scene.