In November 2000, C. Vincent Prothro, 58, collapsed at a meeting of the board of the Eugene McDermott Foundation and was later pronounced dead of a heart attack. Vin, as he was known, was chairman and CEO of Dallas Semiconductor. He was also a leading philanthropic force and the head fundraiser for the nascent Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. His wife, Caren, was asked to fill the void left by her husband. “I still think it was an awful thing for us to do to her. But it was an important thing, symbolically and practically, because Caren ended up being the chair of all our fundraising,” Deedie Rose told the Dallas Morning News. Bill Lively, the former president and CEO of the center, said, “Of all the volunteers, she was the most critical and the most successful.” Before the center’s opening, $335 million had been raised.
Vin would have been bowled over by what this will do for our city and our downtown. He was an engineer by profession and not a musician or aficionado of opera or theater, but he had keen interest in symphony.
Vin saw it from big-picture vision. He knew this would be something that would identify our city in such a way that we could have a place at the table with the likes of Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco. He believed that this is Dallas’ time. We’re a young city, and he loved the fact that we were ambitious to be on par with other great cities of this nation. It felt to us like Dallas had risen to the occasion in so many other ways, but the arts had not closed the gap.
So many wonderful people were working together to bring this vision together, and when Vin died just after the first meeting of the board in November 2000, I didn’t have to think twice. I wanted to do this to realize this 30-year dream, even if I was late to the party. Vin had wanted to be a part of completing the circle, and I wanted to see that through.
I was familiar with the whole strategy because the summer before he died, Vin had laid out all these plans and aerial photos he had gotten Roger Staubach’s company to take, and it gave you a great sense of what had to be done in land acquisition and what the impact would be on various areas of downtown.
Vin was a businessman first, and he was inspired by the fact that in order for this to work, all of these art groups and resident companies would have to come together and work to the betterment of the whole arts center. It’s proven to be the correct strategy.
When we called on the philanthropic community to ask them to come together for one vision, they answered with $335 million. This is a huge tribute to the generosity of this community and proof that Vin’s faith in it was right. The private sector provided 95 percent of the funds. Most cities could not imagine doing this. Most of the time, it’s 50 percent through public funds and 50 percent philanthropic. But Vin and the people he’d worked with believed Dallas would support this.
Vin could see back then what it would mean for our reputation both nationally and internationally. If he were here today and could see the celebratory day of opening and the spotlight ceremony—even I couldn’t believe it. People from all over the community came down to see what this is all about. I was at Nasher Center, where 12,000 people came through on Spotlight Sunday, breaking all the records for one day. The museum was packed. It all came together. We’ve set the stage for something special for something to happen in future. Vin would be proud, and Dallas should be proud of itself.
The lobby in the Winspear Opera House is named in honor of C. Vincent Prothro. An anonymous donor contributed to have the space named for him.
