Community members gathered Friday at Pier One Theatre on the Spit in Homer to celebrate the life and memory of Mary Epperson.

Epperson is remembered by those who knew her as a beloved local music teacher and passionate advocate for education and the arts. In 2011, the City of Homer proclaimed June 6 — her birthday — Mary Epperson Day. She passed away in 2016 at the age of 93 and annual events honoring her legacy have been held nearly every year since, often as collaborations between local arts nonprofits. This year’s event was produced as a collaboration between Pier One Theatre and Homer Council on the Arts.

Friday evening featured open mic-style performances. Long tables across one side of the room were laden with everything from cookies and deviled eggs to roast chicken and popcorn. Tables and chairs dolled up near the front of the stage created an intimate audience experience and the room quickly filled and warmed with people coming in from the chilly, early summer Spit weather.

Mark Robinson, a former music director at Homer High School, said he first met Epperson in 1985, when he and his wife, Nancy, moved to the area. He described how he would often visit Epperson in her studio during his lunch breaks and remembered the endearing way she would ask about his life while also correcting her ever-practicing students’ musical mistakes in brief interjections and asides.

“She changed my life,” he said, noting that Epperson helped him in securing one of his first choral directing experiences in the community.

Performers Friday night included Melanie Dufour, who read a poem her son wrote called “Upheaval.”

Musicians David Webster, Mark Robinson and Scott Bartlett, executive director of Homer Council on the Arts, joined one another onstage to perform on saxophone, keyboard and drums, respectively.

Ola Mullikan began to play on the keyboard but opted to shift to the out-of-tune piano in the corner. Mullikin said she couldn’t remember how Epperson found her, to which Robinson replied, “She found a lot of people.” There were murmurs of approval and understanding from the gathered crowd.

“The first thing she’d say was, ‘What do you play?’” Robinson said.

“And then, ‘Get it out!’” quipped Laura Norton, production manager for Pier One.

Val Shepherd performed “50 U.S. States and their Capitals” from the show “Animaniacs.” She said she remembers coming to see shows at Pier One and seeing Mary in the booth.

“It’s really incredible, just how much and how long a shadow she cast on this town in the arts community,” Shepherd said. “And how vastly different the arts community would look without her.”

Other performers included Cristin San Roman, who played the theme music from “Howl’s Moving Castle” on the keyboard. Cathy Stingley performed a fun, crowd-engaging song about bears in tennis shoes for the “young people, kids and young at heart.” Sunrise Kilcher performed a song she wrote more than 40 years ago about the alarming rise in reliance on technology. A curious, poetic stranger by the name of Iceman performed a monologued, metered story about miner Sam McGhee.

Among the people gathered Friday, some knew Epperson intimately and some knew her only in spirit.

Robinson’s locally famous refrain about Epperson, which he once delivered to thunderous applause at the Mariner Theatre, is that if you had to sum up the arts in Homer in two words, they would be “Mary Epperson.”

“So, remember Mary,” he said, on Friday. “She’s well worth remembering.”

Editor’s note: Reporter Chloe Pleznac has been participating in Pier One Theatre productions since she was 5 years old, including this summer’s production of “The Seagull.” She also spent a summer working in the Pier One office in 2018 and worked for Homer Council on the Arts from 2018-2019.

A room full of community members pack the audience during the 2025 Mary Epperson Day celebration on May 30 at Pier One Theatre on the Spit. (Chloe Pleznac/Homer News)

Sunrise Kilcher Sjoeberg performs a song during the 2025 Mary Epperson Day celebration on May 30 at Pier One Theatre on the Spit. (Chloe Pleznac/Homer News)