Humphrey
It's a long dark drive from the front door of Mrs. Gilbert Humphrey's plantation home in northern Leon County to the entrance of Florida State's future Performance Hall.
Even a harvest moon can't show the way through the branches of live oak trees hanging over the road.
So Humphrey, 79, says she probably won't be venturing out at night to see many of FSU's stage presentations.
But that hasn't discouraged her from offering a tremendous gift to FSU's School of Music.
Humphrey has pledged $2 million to build the Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Concert Hall in the Performance Hall.
"Being a part of the community, I wanted to give something to it," she said from her home at Woodfield Springs Plantation in Miccosukee.
It's hardly her first service to Florida and the causes she believes in.
As an accomplished horsewoman, hunter and dog breeder, she has influenced Florida's protection of wildlife as the first woman commissioner of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.
In 1986 she became the first and only woman president of New York's Metropolitan Opera Association.
The Europeanstyle Humphrey Concert Hall will have 1,200 seats with exceptional acoustics, state-of-the-art equipment and the capacity for a full symphony orchestra, grand opera, orchestra-choral, solo and chamber music, ballet, dance and music theater performances.
Much to Humphrey's delight, the hall will also be an ideal site for jazz ensemble performances.
Louise Ireland Humphrey grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a childhood friend of the boy who would one day become her husband.
Gilbert Humphrey was later chairman of the board of Hanna Mining Company and, when he died in 1979, he was director of the Federated Department Stores, General Reinsurance Corp., Massey-Ferguson Ltd., Scott Paper Co., Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada and National Steel.
Louise Humphrey's youth was filled with long stays in Thomasville, Ga., on her Aunt Elisabeth Ireland "Pansy" Poe's plantation, Pebble Hill.
"That's where I got my love of hunting, and I don't mean bird hunting: foxes, (wild)cat hunting and all that," Humphrey said.
At least one month out of the year, she can be found at her Miccosukee plantation.
She also raises horses in Kentucky, supports the arts in New York City, where she has an apartment, and participates in a long list of organizations in North Florida and South Georgia.
And whenever possible, Humphrey is hunting and, of course, riding horses.
"I don't remember when I didn't know how to ride," she said.