Marcus “Tink” Spencer, who at 101 was the oldest active community concert band member in the United States, died Saturday at Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Mr. Spencer, a retired bookkeeper who played an active role in numerous civic organizations, continued playing with the Greenwood Community Concert Band up until a few months ago, according to President Leo Murphree.
“Tink at 90-something years old bought a brand-new soprano saxophone. What does that tell you about optimism?” Murphree said this morning.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete this morning, Wilson and Knight Funeral Home said.
Mr. Spencer joined the Community Concert Band in 1976 and helped see it through a revival in recent years after membership had dwindled down to eight or 10, Murphree said.
“I believe that being able to play in the Greenwood Community Concert Band and a Dixieland group gives me more satisfaction than anything else,” Spencer said in a 2006 interview. “I do love music, and being able to blow the saxophone means a lot to me.”
He was a longtime member of the Greenwood Kiwanis Club as well as Friends of Cottonlandia, where he received recognition as an outstanding volunteer for the museum.
Mr. Spencer participated in a reading program for preschool children at two Greenwood churches and exercised regularly at the Greenwood Leflore Hospital Wellness Center.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi named him an “Ageless Hero.”
Mr. Spencer grew up in Winona. He played piano briefly but quit because it was “too sissy.” He found the saxophone more to his liking.
A graduate of Chillicothe Business School in Chillicothe, Mo., Mr. Spencer worked as a bookkeeper for several companies in Winona. A job at Quinn Drug Co. in Greenwood brought him to Greenwood in 1954.
He later worked for Mid-South Sporting Goods and Barrentine Manufacturing Co. He retired when Barrentine closed in 1982.
He married his first wife, Ruth, in 1936. After she passed away in 1978, Mr. Spencer married his second wife, Lucille, in 1979. She died in 1996.
So what was Mr. Spencer’s key to longevity?
Keeping active, he always said.
“Stay as active as your health permits. Get yourself involved in as many activities as possible. Don’t be a couch potato. Get out and exercise several times a week,” he said in the 2006 interview.
