I am writing this month’s column with a sad song in my heart. We awoke this morning to an email from SOKY Happenings writer Lee Stott’s daughter that Lee passed away very early this morning… March 18, 2021.
One of my less favorite parts of technology is it allowed us to work with Lee for many years and yet I never had the privilege of meeting him in person. I never even heard his voice on the phone. I knew Lee through his wonderful articles and through email conversations we had over the years… usually about things to do with articles he was sending in.
One of my favorite memories was an email exchange we had when Twila and I wanted to add a picture of each writer to accompany their bio with their article. To put it politely Lee was not fond of the idea and declined to provide a picture. I considered putting a cartoon character picture with his article one month to make my point but instead we reached a compromise… he won.
I never knew what manner of music would be discovered and discussed each month in Lee’s articles… some sort of obscure composer from 200 years ago or something being performed by local folks at SKyPAC… but I knew it would always be well researched, entertaining and informative. It was easy to see Lee’s personality in his pieces and my favorites were when he also included a reference or two to his interesting life in broadcasting.
Lee was born Leland Hyrum Stott, Jr. on March 30, 1932 and was a former member of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, Southern Kentucky Choral Society and served as secretary for the board of directors of Orchestra Kentucky. He was the Music Director of Western Public Radio, WKYU-FM 88.9 for 27 years where he hosted “Music in the Morning” and “Evening with the Pops” radio shows.
After graduating from Wayne State University, Lee taught seminary at Davis and Provo High Schools in Utah. While attending graduate school at Brigham Young University, he helped establish KBYU-FM public radio, taught communication classes and met his wife, Carol Ann Senke (1941-2013).
SOKY’s loss will no doubt be Heaven’s gain. I can picture Lee sitting around with a bunch of old composers saying… “You know… I wrote about you a few years ago. You’re just like I expected.” Or, right now, Lee is listening to some Heavenly group perform the most amazing music and I can hear him thinking… “Hmmmm, I wonder if God has a newsletter where I can write a review of this concert?”
All of us in the SOKY Happenings family send our deepest sympathies to Lee’s family and close friends and hope they know how much we will all miss his wonderful contributions to our magazine, our community and the music world. Expressions of sympathy may take the form of donations to The Missionary Fund of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and/or WKYU Public Radio.
I started to end with something nice like… “God bless and rest in peace, Lee.” But, on second thought… God bless and enjoy the wonderful Heavenly music, Lee. We will all miss you.
