The Way Back: Music Maker

By Abigail Rosenthal in May | June 2023, The Way Back, TXEX on May 1, 2023 at 7:00 am | No Comments

You may have heard the name Cloteal Davis Haynes, BM ’72, MPAff ’77. She has served as a planning supervisor with the City of Austin and is the CEO of Austin construction company Haynes-Eaglin-Waters, LLC. Notably, she is president of The Precursors, Inc., an organization of the first Black students to attend and integrate UT.

This photo was taken in the early 1970s, and Davis Haynes graduated with a degree in music education in 1973. Her first job out of college was teaching violin at O. Henry Junior High in West Austin. “I like what music does for people,” she was quoted as saying in the 1973 Cactus yearbook. “And what it does for me.” 

UT’s School of Music first opened in 1914 and has steadily grown since with the addition of Music Building East in 1969 and a Performing Arts Center for the College of Fine Arts in 1980. In 2008, the school was renamed in honor of Dr. Ernest and Sarah Butler following the couple’s gift of $55 million, the largest in the history of the School of Music and the College of Fine Arts.   

CREDIT: The Cactus yearbook