Encore Performance: Dorothy Barscz

Dorothy Barscz, better known as Dotty B or Dorothy B, has a singing voice that is familiar to hundreds of people in the Laguna Madre area.

Her husband, who owned a business in Alton, Ill., suffered two heart attacks in the early 1960s, she said. During his recuperation friends invited them to visit the Rio Grande Valley.

"That was our first time to come here," she said. The couple went back to Alton, sold everything they owned and retired here.

The town was small, and everybody knew everybody else, Barscz said. "We were strangers when we got here, and people threw a big pachanga to welcome us." She said she would never forget the experience.

In those days, she said, Blackbeard's Restaurant was on stilts. "They were always running fundraisers to help people," she said.

After the death of her husband, Barscz worked in several restaurants on South Padre Island, including the Beachcomber. She even owned a couple of them.

"Back in those days we even exchanged customers back and forth," she said. "One night a nearby competitor had two customers for dinner, and instead of cooking just for them he brought them to our place."

At a party one night Jewell Dancey suggested that Barscz up and sing with the band, and after a little persuasion she did just that.

"I started to leave the bandstand, and they called me back to sing several more songs," she said.

Now, most of her singing is in church. In the 1970s, after the death of her husband, she wrote "Good Morning, God."

"I once had throat cancer," she said, "and I prayed to God and asked Him to please let me keep my voice so I could continue singing His praise."

Looks like the prayers were answered.

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