Last night (Dec. 13) I attended an excellent Christmas pageant at Sudbury Secondary School. A dramatic reading of a Christmas Carol and music was presented as a benefit for the Joan Mantle Music Trust.

Joan Mantle was an educator and music instructor with the Rainbow Board of Education for many years. She died in 2009.

The trust fund was established in her name to help improve high school music programs in the English public school board.

There were outstanding performances by the Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School Woodwind Ensemble, the Lasalle Bluegrass Duo, the Sudbury Secondary Brass Ensemble, as well as by story readers CBC Radio host Markus Schwabe, Sudbury Living publisher Patricia Mills, police chief Frank Elsner, Laurentian University president Dominic Giroux, and director of the Rainbow Board of Education, Jean Hanson.

It was a great show for a great cause. Ideal for putting even a Scrooge in the Christmas spirit.