Sometimes leadership can be symbolized by a red dress.
It was during the Depression and Frances Bartlett Kinne was the youngest in a statewide piano competition as a high-school junior, having won four previous ones to qualify.
Her mother offered to dye the white dress bought two years earlier for confirmation.
What color? “Oh red, of course,” said the teenager.
Competitors from across Iowa drew numbers for their queue and Fran, as she is called by just about all who know her, ended up last at No. 18.
“To me they all looked so sophisticated, they were all older and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?”
“But I had the red dress”
She won.
By the time No. 17 finished, she realized the judges might be tired. Maybe that dress awakened them a little bit, she figured.
She took part in piano competitions since fifth grade, and winning wasn’t always the case.
“I learned how to lose and to know that there are always people better than I am,” she said.
And that was a leadership driver. Win or lose, there was a lesson.
“I always said, ‘I know I can do this better,’” she said.
Kinne, usually colorfully dressed, turns 100 years old today.
The Iowa native and her husband, a military officer, came to town in 1958 and she joined the staff of Jacksonville University, leading to a series of well-known firsts.
Now chancellor emerita, she became the first woman dean of a College of Fine Arts in the world and the first woman to be president of a Florida university, leading JU from 1979-89. She remained as chancellor until 1994.
Along the way, among other achievements, she became one of the first women to join the Rotary Club of Jacksonville and the first to serve as its president.
Kinne is noted for her leadership.
“Life is not about me. Life is about others,” she said as she was preparing for this week of festivities.
That’s the core of her leadership – knowing others’ names, family, activities, achievements, and, with students, where they sat in her class during her decades at Jacksonville University.
Kinne shows interest in everyone she meets, and displays a memory of their connection. She remains active and positive, which she recommends because activity is good for the body and positivity is good for the brain.
A leadership lesson learned from her parents and from her late husband, U.S. Army Col. Harry Kinne, was treating others with respect.
“Everyone should be treated exactly the same. You’d better care about every single person. That is imperative,” she said.
Her father was a newspaper executive and her mother’s experience included serving as president of the school board at a time women didn’t hold many such titles. Kinne also had an older brother whom she adored.
At her early birthday parties, she gave gifts rather than received them. Her parents made sure she learned to think of others.
She showed talent as a toddler, picking out tunes on the piano at the age of 2. By 5, she was singing as well.
Between 2 and 5, she took parts in plays with repertory theater.
“I was just a little thing. Here are all these people around me who are great actors. I kept my eyes open and my ears open,” she said.
At 5, Fran was chosen to lead her class in song at Christmas Eve church services. Her mother made her a satin and lace dress, but her parents also gave her a Mackinaw coat for Christmas.
Fran decided to wear the coat the whole time. “I wouldn’t take it off, I was so proud of it. Poor mother, who’d sewn this beautiful dress. It was so stupid on my part. Again, I think you learn something when you’re 5.”
That connects with her leadership advice to students.
“Leadership classes are great, but you’ve got to have some experience and you have to have done some stupid things in order to know what you should be doing,” she said.
She also contends that leadership requires initiative.
Kinne became the Rotary Club of Jacksonville’s first female president in 2000-01.
Before the presidency, she served as program chair, which put her into the position of welcoming speakers.
She noted the worldwide recognition of one.
“The only thing I’m ever going to be known for is as the first member of Rotary International to have a hysterectomy,” she told the club.
(Another female member had planted that observation, but Kinne hadn’t planned on using it. It just slipped out, she said.)
“It was dead silence for about 30 seconds, then they laughed and they cheered. From that moment on, I was part of their group,” Kinne said.
Another lesson in leadership – use humor.
Kinne’s leadership also drew the attention of those wanting her to run for political office, including for mayor.
“I was not polite. I laughed and I was so sorry afterward. I said, ‘I’d make a terrible mayor. I’m too sensitive. I would not be able to do that,’” she said.
Kinne said they assured her that “no, no, we want you to.”
“I was embarrassed that I had laughed instead of saying something nice,” but she had no interest in public office.
She estimated that she’s given more than 2,000 speeches, which demands and hones public speaking skills and the power to change mindsets.
That talent helped her play a role in recruiting Mayo Clinic to Jacksonville.
She was sent to Mayo’s headquarters in Rochester, Minn., to persuade doctors and their spouses that a move to Jacksonville would be a good one.
“I am from Iowa and I’m accustomed to cold weather, but I also know how wonderful it is to be in Florida, and how lovely it is. It’s not the end of civilization. We even have a symphony,” she told them.
She’s happy to say it worked – about 30 made the move. Mayo opened the Jacksonville campus in 1986. She has been a loyal benefactor and supporter, as well as a patient.
Kinne chronicled her life in her 2000 autobiography “Iowa Girl: The President Wears a Skirt.”
Last week, Kinne said her life has been an adventure.
“I’ve been fortunate, I’ve been blessed, I know. I’m just happy to be here. I’m happy to be anywhere, really,” she said.
Having dealt with some medical issues in recent weeks, Kinne said she thought there was “something I still have to do in this world.
“And I think there is.”
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Frances Bartlett Kinne, an Iowa native and longtime Jacksonville University leader, experienced life overseas during her husband’s military service. She also made friendships and connections with national leaders and entertainers.
U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur: Disciplined
Kinne served on MacArthur’s staff.
“The most valuable thing I learned from him was completed staff work. He was dogged about that,” she said.
Kinne said it makes “all the difference in the world.”
“I’m so surprised that some executives don’t do it. Consequently, they’re spending all kinds of time when all they’d have to do is get somebody that knows what to do and let them do it. Instead of doing all the leadership themselves, they’ve got to train other people.”
She said she liked MacArthur very much “because he had discipline.”
President Gerald Ford: Caring
Ford was concerned for others. “He was so kind,” she said. He wrote her to “do the things you like to do, all the time.” The letter arrived on the Friday after Ford died the previous Tuesday.
“The one thing I always noticed with him was he never, ever passed up anybody.”
Ford was friends with comedian Bob Hope, another good friend of Fran. “If somebody was standing back in the corner, they’d go back there and talk instead of just letting people circle around them.”
Bob Hope: Unpretentious
Hope, who traveled to entertain the troops during World War II, had charm, she said. “There was not one person in the world he couldn’t talk to. He was so down to earth.”
Kinne said Hope’s funeral was held in a small church filled with friends, including former presidents. She thought it was too bad it wasn’t in “in a great big church because it’s the people that really cared about him.”
Arthur Fiedler: Dedicated
The Boston Pops Orchestra conductor visited Jacksonville about 16 times, Kinne recalled, and one trip was to raise money for the Jacksonville Symphony.
He rearranged his scheduled to make the trip. “It was a big, big night,” she said.
But at rehearsal, the harpist had whispered as Fiedler raised his baton. He put down the baton and looked at her.
“He waits, everybody just sits there and then everybody knows what happened.” He then resumed.
“I thought, it’s lucky this is a rehearsal,” Kinne said.
While the concert was successful, Kinne said her heart almost stopped because when Fiedler raised his baton, a voiced cried out from the balcony: “We love you, Arthur Fiedler.”
He stopped, turned around again — and resumed.
After his performances, Kinne would cook for him and the orchestra director at her home. “He liked the fact that I would fix eggs for him. I would microwave them. I don’t know if he even knew they were microwaved.”
Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren: Friendly
The world-famous twin newspaper-advice columnists, also from Iowa, were down to earth and always noticed those around them rather than focusing on themselves.
Kinne said Landers was receiving thousands of letters a week and kept her attention on helping people.
Landers died before van Buren. Kinne was visiting a patient in the hospital when van Buren, in a wheelchair, exited the elevator with her caregiver.
“Fran! What are you doing here?” van Buren asked.
The caregiver told Kinne that van Buren hadn’t been recognizing people, and Kinne replied she hadn’t seen her in six to eight months.
“How did she know you?” the caregiver asked. Kinne couldn’t explain it.