A Life in Sonata Form
From Lamont Scholarship Recipient to High-Impact Lamont Donor
According to music scholars, a sonata typically has three movements: a beginning or exposition, then a new development, and finally a recapitulation or return to the beginning. If lives and careers can in some sense parallel musical forms, it’s a sonata that captures Mel Cooksey’s path.
After completing his BME at DU, Mel was sufficiently talented to gain admission to the Lamont School of Music for his master’s degree. Outstanding woodwind musician that he was, though, benefiting from a Lamont education would have been impossible without scholarship assistance. Cooksey never forgot what that support meant, nor did he forget the kindness of those donors who made his later career in music possible.
After earning his Lamont master’s, Cooksey attended the University of North Texas – one of the nation’s largest and most respected music programs – where he earned his doctorate (DMA). Mel took a year off from UNT to take a one-year sabbatical teaching job at the University of Saskatchewan and when he returned to UNT he met his future wife, Lynne, also a DMA recipient. After teaching at Hastings College in Nebraska for many years, Lynne received a teaching/performing opportunity in the Philadelphia – Delaware area, and Mel decided it was time to make both a geographical move and a major career transition, as well.
In sonata terms, that new theme was clearly a departure: leaving music professionally and pursuing an opportunity in the insurance industry, specifically the sub-specialty of risk management. That meant a significant learning curve initially, and Mel gained expertise by working for established agencies until founding his own firm in 1992, Agency Risk Management. Still serving as president of the highly successful company, which consults with commercial insurance agencies and their clients in providing safety and human resources risk management services, Mel and Lynne had a reached a stage of financial capacity where significant gifts became a possibility. Mel’s appreciation both for his Lamont education and the financial aid allowed him to realize it could be expressed in a tangible manner.
Thus, the sonata’s third movement, a return to the original theme, which happened in 2023 when Mel and Lynne established a testamentary endowed scholarship fund of $500,000 supporting Lamont students studying woodwinds. The gift is a means of giving back but, just as importantly, paying it forward for future generations of wind musicians at Lamont. “I was able to attend DU because of significant scholarship help, which allowed me to focus on my academic goals without graduating in debt,” Mel explained. “My wife and I are hoping this endowed scholarship fund will help others do the same.”
That’s a sentiment perhaps challenging to use in a song lyric, but to the faculty, staff, and wind instruments students at Lamont, it’s every bit as beautiful as a Beethoven, Mozart, or Haydn sonata.
