Plano Man Beats Death, Achieves Life-long Dream

PLANO (AP) – On a cruise to Alaska in July 2007, I.L. "Lonnie" Morris suffered a near-death experience. Since age 13, he had weathered a condition known as ulcerative colitis. Stranded on a ship, his insides gave out. Lifeless and limp, he flew home from Anchorage, his future bleak.

He languished in the hospital until April 2008, returning home for a few days at Thanksgiving. Twice his doctor told him that he should say goodbye to his minister and wife because, in the doctor's words, "I don't think you're coming back."

So, what happened here on a recent Sunday night is, as Morris and his family say, nothing less than a miracle. The man who twice hovered at the doorstep of death realized a lifelong dream of conducting a symphony orchestra.

"If you have a dream and you want it badly enough," an emotional Morris told the crowd at Christ United Methodist Church, "you'll work at it long enough and hard enough until you can do it."

His long arms guiding their movements as though he were Jaap van Zweden, the lanky Morris powered the Plano Symphony Orchestra through Procession of the Nobles by Rimsky-Korsakov, Symphony No. 3 in C Minor (The Organ Symphony) by Saint-Saëns; and Marche Slave by Tchaikovsky.

He closed the program with selections from his beloved Disney movies and drew a rousing standing ovation from an audience that shed plenty of tears.

For Morris to attend the performance, much less lead it, defied all odds. Surgeons long ago removed most of his colon; he wears a bulky colostomy bag under his shirt. He relearned how to walk, which took almost three months. An operation in late 2007 to remove blood clots from his right leg almost killed him and left him with a nasty scar. At one point, he had only 120 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame.

Without Suzanne, his wife of 39 years, he wouldn't be here, he says. And without co-workers he regards as truly beloved, he could not have maintained his 26-year practice as a certified public accountant.

Since he was a kid growing up in Shreveport, La., Morris has reveled in classical music. He dreamed, not of being a quarterback or a member of the Beatles, but of standing before a real symphony orchestra and being its conductor, like his hero, Leonard Bernstein.

So, during the four long years between his cruise-ship nadir and now, Morris made a promise to himself. He would do something big for his 60th birthday.

Feeling he was "100 percent cured," he launched a campaign three years ago to make his dream a reality. He spoke with three area conductors, all of whom were skeptical. Two brushed him off completely, despite Morris being a gifted amateur pianist who followed four years as a high school drum major by playing for two years in the University of Texas marching band.

He's also a seven-year member of the Plano Symphony board and friends with conductor Hector Guzman. Friendship aside, Guzman was dubious of Morris making his dream a reality.

"He's telling me like it is," Morris said, "So I look him in the eye and say, `Hector, you have to understand: I have dreamed of doing this since high school. I never got the opportunity. I just want to live the experience.' "

Guzman, who is traveling in Korea, was unable to attend. Debbie Watson, the executive director of the Plano Symphony, calls Morris' opportunity "extremely unusual. It's a very unique opportunity for an individual to achieve their dream." Even so, she fully understands why her conductor and others were skeptical.

"It's not a common thing for a symphony orchestra in general," Watson says, "for two reasons: One, there's the skepticism of turning your musicians over to someone they're not familiar with, and two, it's not an inexpensive project."

Morris is paying for the privilege, a hefty sum he declines to enumerate for publication.

"I'm thankful to my children for letting me spend their inheritance," he says with a laugh, referring to Lon, 26, and Amy, 16. "You only live once. Why not enjoy it? When you're gone, you can't take your money with you."

Morris sighed and said, "This is my dream. For the rest of my life, I can say that I conducted a symphony orchestra. And no matter what happens, no one will ever be able to take that away from me."

   (Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)