Ms. Jacquelyn Saunders, Piano
 
 
Jacqulyn is the daughter of the late Edythe Cromartie Walker and the late Ulysses Titus (UT) Saunders. Her maternal grandparents, the late Allen and the late Mattie Reid Cromartie have been instrumental catalysts of the GOD-given talents that people have come to know and recognize Jacqulyn for. Jackye’s paternal grandparents, the late Plummer and the late Lessie Yellock Saunders, with other family members, helped to provide the stable spiritual environment which has proven to exist as the basis for Jackye’s lifestyle, decisions, and determination.
 
Jackye is an honor graduate of the 1969 class of Magnolia High School and a Cum Laude graduate of the then existing Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. Jackye’s educational pursuits have helped her to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Master’s degree in Counseling Education and complete all required coursework for the PhD program in General Psychology/Teaching pending the assignment of a dissertation committee and follow-through in the next year.
 
Jackye has been playing the piano since age five under the tutelage of Mrs. Ida Mae Cleveland, Mr. Jimmy Coleman, and especially Mrs. Carolyn Henry, though she has had no “formal” training with the instrument because she could not read music. A song played by the aunt of Carolyn Henry (Mrs. Lorraine Cain) served to spur Jackye’s ear for music to take a flying leap and launch her into the role of being and developing as a dedicated church musician. Jackye also attributes much of her acquired musical manifestations to Gerald Smith (Washington, DC), Patrick Lundy (Thomasville, GA & Washington, DC), Kirdell Minor (Washington, DC), and the late Donald Vails with his emphasis on playing bass on the piano. She has played for several churches in Thomasville (Mercy Seat Christian Church [membership church], Piney Grove MBC, Ochlocknee MBC, Hadley CME Church, Clifford Temple CME Church, Bethany United Church of Christ, and First Missionary Baptist Church); Atlanta (Rising Star Baptist Church); Columbus, GA (Holsey Chapel CME Church), Washington, DC (Mount Pleasant MB Church and Mount Jezreel Baptist Church), and Madison, WI (Mount Zion Baptist Church).
 
Currently Jackye is an original member of the GA Mass Choir, Patrick Lundy & the Ministers of Music—GA Unit, the First Missionary Baptist Church Recording Choir, the South Georgia Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America, and the Minister of Music at her home church, the Mercy Seat Christian Church. To simply say that “ ‘GOD is good!’ ” is an understatement in Jackye’s case.