A Montgomery woman has been included on a list of unsung heroines and will be honored at a statehouse ceremony May 16 staged by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.
Julie MacNayr Pike was nominated for the honor by State Sen. Michael Knapik (R – Westfield)) and State Rep. Peter V. Kocot (D – Northampton) in recognition of her service as the secretary and event coordinator for the Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival.
Kocot said “she’s very deserving” and said he nominated her because of the “literally hundreds of hours” she contributes to the event and other activities in her community each year.
Kocot said that she asked him to open the highland games at the festival the first year it was staged in Northampton and said he has been happy to do that every year since at the “great gathering together of folks with Scottish heritage.”
“She’s very active in Montgomery” he said adding “people like her really do build strong communities.”
Knapik said “I’m delighted to have nominated Julie” and called her “a great inspiration to the establishment of the Glasgow Lands festival” which he said has become “a major Northeast festival to celebrate Scottish heritage.”
But Pike downplayed her contribution to the event saying “I keep the records.”
She said “I am very honored (by the award) but I feel there are a lot of other people who do more.”
Pike said that she sang at the first of the annual Scottish festivals when it was staged at the Blandford fairgrounds.
She continued to perform annually and said she joined the organizers to help stage the event after five years because she wanted to see the event continue. “And, I have a Scottish heritage, of course.”
When she started to help with the event, the organizers were looking for a new venue for the festival, which had outgrown the Blandford site and it moved to Westfield’s Stanley Park where it continued for another five years. Then, it was relocated again, to Look Park in Northampton, where it has continued for nine years.
The festival, which Pike called “a day full of Celtic music and the sounds of bagpipes”, is staged on the third Saturday in July, this year on July 21.
Although the commission is honoring Pike for her work with Glasgow Lands Festival, she is also well know locally for her clear soprano voice, which she has raised in song locally for decades.
She said that she started singing with the choir at Westfield’s First United Methodist Church “in the early ‘80s” and continues to participate there.
Over the years she has also sung locally with other groups.
She said she sang with the Festival Chorus of Westfield until the chorus’s director, Ted Davidovich, retired and the group disbanded. She has also sung with the Greater Westfield Choral Association and with the Symphony Chorus.
Her non-musical activities include service with the Montgomery Historical Society as an event coordinator working to schedule speakers for the society’s quarterly meetings.
She said she served on the Montgomery Cultural Council for “ten years or so” and also works with a committee dedicated to the preservation of her grandmother’s Methodist church, the South Worthington Church, which has been decommissioned.
Pike also keeps busy at “Pike’s Peak”, her family’s Christmas tree farm in Montgomery, but said she will make time to go to the Statehouse ceremony.
She said that she will go to Boston with her daughter and “make a day of it” with some sightseeing before the commission’s ceremony.
Jill Ashton, a director the commission, said that the Unsung Heroines program, now in its ninth year, is staged “to recognized women who have made contributions to their community or organization.”
She said that the commission seeks to honor “women who haven’t received recognition elsewhere” and said that this year state legislators were asked to nominate women for the award.
The mission of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, according to its website, “is to provide a permanent, effective voice for women across Massachusetts. The Commission stands for fundamental freedoms, basic human rights and the full enjoyment of life for all women throughout their lives. The purpose of the commission is to advance women toward full equality in all areas of life and to promote rights and opportunities for women.”
