RIP, Barbara Crockett

Barbara Crockett, the woman who single-mindedly put Sacramento on the map of world ballet, passed away a month short of her 102nd birthday. I'm amazed by Barbara Crockett's influence and reach. Linda Walker, founder of Tucson Regional Ballet, and from whom I took lessons when I lived in Tucson, was just one of many, many young girls who learned their craft from Barbara Crockett. 

Barbara Crockett will be greatly missed:

Born Barbara Virginia Wood on Sept. 19, 1920, in Berkeley, Crockett grew up in Fresno and began to dance at the San Francisco Ballet’s dance school at 16. At the school, she met her husband, a teacher and dancer 14 years her senior, with the two marrying in 1942. 

They came to Sacramento within a few years, following Deane Crockett’s service in World War II. “After the war, my dad wanted to go somewhere where they could really build their own thing and not just be part of San Francisco Ballet,” their younger daughter, Allyson Deane, said. “So that’s why they came to Sacramento.”