One of the things that most impresses me about life on our Rock is the caliber of people who decide to move here, often after achieving considerable success in America. Then they go on to achieve more success on Whidbey. Two key abilities of these wonderful folks are their talent and leadership, often coupled with a lot of patience and persistence as well.

I thought about this as I worked recently with Cheryl Waide, who moved to the Rock in 2013 with her husband Jon Waide, a retired Presbyterian minister. She says they moved here to retire, but that definitely isn’t what happened for Cheryl. She ended up starting the Bells of Whidbey, a community group of bell ringers that just played their third annual holiday concert last Saturday in Oak Harbor. More about that later.

Almost all of Cheryl’s life has been devoted to music — playing it and teaching it. She’s been a church organist, a piano teacher, a university instructor and more. She was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and started playing the piano when she was very young. She went on to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in music at the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham.

“I worked in a conservatory school and taught piano and music theory for eight years,” she said. “Then I taught music at the University of Montevallo for three years.”

After she got married. She moved to Bellingham, where she started and ran a music school for piano, violin and flute for 12 years.

Next, she and her husband moved to the tiny town of Yachats on the coast of Oregon south of Newport, where he did research and she became a church organist. That’s when she became interested in hand bells and the beautiful music they make. She directed a community group of bell ringers and joined the Handbell Musicians of America, a national association.

“I just discovered that ringing hand bells is a relaxing thing and you exercise muscles in your hands and arms,” she said. “It’s also an enjoyable thing because you work with others as a group.”

She knew Jon Waide as the minister at the Presbyterian church in Yachats. Several years after both their spouses had passed away, Cheryl and Jon married in 2005. And not too long after that, they started thinking about moving to Whidbey.

“Both of us had visited Whidbey separately in the past, so we knew it,” she said. “Then we came for a vacation and kept coming back until we bought a house in Coupeville and moved here. We love it.”

It wasn’t long before “retired” Cheryl became the hand bell conductor for the Coupeville United Methodist Church, which she did until 2020, when the COVID pandemic struck. The Coupeville church has had a hand bell choir for decades and is known on the island for its beautiful music.

After the pandemic ended, Cheryl, by then having moved with Jon to Oak Harbor, began to assemble a community hand bell group, often attracting ringers from churches in the area. The Bells of Whidbey was officially organized in September 2022. Its first concert was for the holidays that December at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, where all its concerts have since been held.

All their concerts—there have been six, two per year—are benefits for local charitable groups. More than $10,000 has been raised for groups such as SPiN Cafe, Habitat for Humanity and local food banks.

That brings me to the holiday concert last Saturday, Dec. 14. You may remember that fierce winds took out the power for all of Whidbey. The church had no lights or heat that afternoon. People wondered if the Bells concert would be cancelled. But Cheryl, talented and persistent leader that she is, decided that, since so much effort had been gone into planning and rehearsing, the show must go on “even if we just play for ourselves.”

As the 2 p.m. start time approached, the power was still off as the ringers assembled at St. Stephen’s. Then a wonderful surprise happened. An audience appeared — more than 100 people. I was the narrator for the concert, and what I heard from many in the audience was that it was worth bundling up and coming because music by the Bells of Whidbey will warm any heart. And indeed it did.

Cheryl led the Bells through traditional holiday tunes from “Jingle Bells” to “Silent Night.” The audience hummed along and cheered. Then, halfway through the concert, the power came back on!

“It was a thrill to see this group work together under these unusual circumstances,” Cheryl said. “It’s a community thing and all that applause was such a reward.”

Talent, leadership, persistence. Our Rock has certainly been enriched by the presence of Cheryl Waide.

Harry Anderson is a retired journalist who worked for the Los Angeles Times and now lives on Central Whidbey.