[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 11, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A TRIBUTE TO AILEEN DININO

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. CARRIE P. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 11, 1999

  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to 
Mrs. Aileen DiNino of North Miami, who has contributed so much to the 
cultural atmosphere of Florida in the 48 years which she has devoted to 
the teaching of music in our state. Mrs. DiNino, nearly 84, works with 
the junior string development of the Miami Youth Symphony, volunteers 
at public schools, has dozens of private students, and plays at her 
church, as well.
  The future Mrs. DiNino first took piano lessons when she was seven 
years old. Her first music teachers were nuns in Wisconsin, where she 
grew up and sometimes accompanied her grandfather's fiddle in a duet. 
When she was 14, Aileen DiNino began studying the violin as she entered 
the convent. She taught children at an Indian reservation while still a 
teenager. At age 21, she took her vows as a nun with the Franciscans of 
Perpetual Adoration. She left the order decades later, upon the demise 
of the health of both her mother and herself.
  In Minnesota, Mrs. DiNino met her future husband, Frank, who also was 
a musician and who had been a member of General Pershing's band. After 
marriage, the couple moved to South Florida, where Mrs. DiNino became a 
professor at Miami-Dade Community College.
  Today, as ever, Mrs. DiNino encourages here proteges to give their 
very best to their music. It is indeed a privilege to recognize the 
dedication of such an outstanding Florida citizen as Mrs. Aileen 
DiNino.

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