A long goodbye to the man known as the “Music Man of the North Olympic Peninsula” begins today and will reach its peak during a three-day festival over Labor Day weekend.
Mackie, 71, is in ill health, and plans to move to Michigan to be close to his daughter.
A farewell party is planned at about 11:15 a.m. today at the Community United Methodist Church, 130 Church Lane, Port Ludlow, after a 10 a.m. worship service.
People will be invited to share their stories about the Quilcene man who has brought music to thousands of children on the North Olympic Peninsula.
A three -day music festival on Labor Day weekend at Memorial Field in Port Townsend is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 4, from noon to 8 p.m. Sept. 5 and from noon to 5 p.m. Sept. 6.
A to-be-scheduled farewell concert will follow sometime in September, and Mackie expects to be relocated in Michigan shortly after.
“It will be a sad day for everyone here when he leaves,” said Matt Sircely, a Port Townsend musician who taught music in Brinnon schools as one of Mackie’s first staff members.
“But we know it is the best for him and there are people who will carry on his work,” Sircely said.
The Andy Mackie Music Foundation, established in 1996, provides instruments, lessons and scholarships to children who want to learn to play music.
It operates out of Mackie’s home in Quilcene.
As he prepares to leave, Mackie is recruiting people to take over the manufacture and distribution of instruments, while seeking to establish branches of the foundation in locations across the country.
As the local branch carries on, he has immediate plans to start a similar operation in his new home.
Mackie, who has long suffered heart problems, has had several recent heart attacks.
“I have a lot of health issues,” Mackie said. “It’s hard for me to get out of bed and I need someone to take care of me.”
He said his daughter in Michigan has her own health issues.
“I tried to convince her to move here, but she wouldn’t do it,” Mackie said.
He wanted to stay in the area.
“This community means a lot to me,” Mackie said on Friday.
“It will be very hard for me to leave.”
It goes both ways. Mackie means a lot to the community.
Mackie has taught more than 12,000 children to play harmonica, mostly in public schools.
He also has brought music to an estimated 4,000 children by building or acquiring simple stringed instruments on which they can hammer out a simple tune.
Mackie works with public schools, where shop classes learn how to make guitars and a “strum stick,” which is a three-string open-tuned instrument that resembles a dulcimer.
Among the honors given Mackie was recognition at the inaugural Real Heroes Breakfast of the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the American Red Cross in 2003, which honored 11 people and one group for having helped others.
Mackie also was one of five recipients of the first Jefferson County Heart of Service award in 2006.
He was honored for his tireless efforts to teach music, particularly the harmonica, to children and for his nonprofit foundation which had already supplied thousands of musical instruments to youth and also funded college scholarships.
Mackie emigrated to the United States from Scotland on a cattle boat when he was 17, and spent 35 years managing livestock and training horses in the Midwest before moving to Quilcene in 1981.
After he became ill, he made a decision.
He had been through 10 procedures, including open heart surgery.
Wanting to pass along the songs of his native Scotland before he died, he volunteered to provide harmonicas and teach one class of Quilcene Elementary School students to play. The whole school took him up on the offer.
“I decided to buy harmonicas instead of medicine,” Mackie said then.
By 2003, he had given away more than 3,000 harmonicas, and was teaching children how to make music — and instruments — in Brinnon, Quilcene, Chimacum, Port Townsend and Sequim schools.
Mackie’s efforts now are centered on maintaining the foundation’s momentum for the community.
With this in mind, Mackie is using the Labor Day show as a major fundraiser and he is seeking contributions to the foundation in every spare moment.
To help out for the Labor Day silent auction — either through providing items for the silent auction or to volunteer — phone Mackie at 360-316-9556.
For more information about the Andy Mackie Music Foundation, see www.andymackiemusic.org.
