Many stories can be found inside the walls of the Natchez Senior Center Multipurpose Buidling.

Take James Rowan and Addie Dixon, for example. Rowan and Dixon are two of the Senior Center&8217;s members that the center hopes to interview as part of an oral history project.

James Rowan

James Rowan Jr.&8217;s love of the trumpet lead him all the way to a studio on Broadway.

But it all started just a few blocks down St. Catherine Street from his current home, when he was in seventh-grade at Brumfield School. Trying his hand at at least five different instruments, he settled on the trumpet &8212; a decision that would shape the rest of his life.

Take the military, for example. Serving in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II on Okinawa, Rowan and a few of his fellow soldiers formed a band in their spare time.

&8220;You know the term &8216;dive bombers&8217; we called ourselves &8216;The Jive Bombers,&8217; he said, laughing.

Rowan, who&8217;s almost 80 now, always wanted to pursue a career in music and, after his finished college at Alcorn State University, he found two ways. Taking the advice of a friend, he first got a job forming the first black school band in Franklin County in the early 1950s. He would teach band on and off in Mississippi and Louisiana for the next 13 years. But interspersed with his teaching stints were his travels throughout the South and up to Chicago, playing trumpet with various bands. That&8217;s something he would continue until the 1980s, when he landed a steady gig playing jazz at the Under-the-Hill Saloon.

&8220;They knew I was dedicated to preserving traditional jazz in Natchez,&8221; Rowan said.

And it was there, in 1987, that saloon co-owner Andre Farrish called Rowan&8217;s attention to the fact that auditions were being held in New Orleans for a show called &8220;Satchmo: America&8217;s Musical Legend.&8221;

&8220;I didn&8217;t know what it was,&8221; Rowan said. &8220;I thought it was a movie.&8221;

But it turned out to be a musical play

&8212; one in which, after several weeks of auditions in the Big Easy and at a studio on New York&8217;s Broadway, he landed a part as Louis Armstrong mentor Joe King Oliver.

&8220;They needed someone who already played the trumpet,&8221; Rowan explained. &8220;It&8217;s easier to take someone who knows how to play music and teach them to act than teach an actor how to play.&8221;

In all, &8220;Satchmo&8221; played 100 shows, from Georgia all the way to Boston, where its run ended.

But behind Rowan &8212; and the trumpet and stack of scrapbooks that sit by his side &8212; posters signed by the cast still take up a prominent place on the wall.

And despite having small parts in movies that filmed in Natchez since then, including &8220;Huckleberry Finn&8221; and &8220;Good Ole Boy,&8221; &8220;Satchmo&8221; continues to be a defining moment in his life.

And one of the biggest unexpected turns of his life.

&8220;I was surprised,&8221; he said. &8220;I didn&8217;t even think I&8217;d get the part.&8221;

Addie Dixon

What thrills Addie Dixon, now 97, most is the role she has played for the Lord.

Perhaps it was always meant to be. Some of the best memories Dixon has of her childhood in Gloster involve the entire community not only working together and sharing all they had, but teaching each other&8217;s children about God.

And one of her first jobs as an adult &8212; in addition to working at several department stores &8220;Chamberlain Patterson&8217;s ready-to-wear store, until they closed in 1928&8221; and doing housework &8212; was doing a variety of chores for the nuns of the order Daughters of Charity.

&8220;I would wash those wide hats they wore and starch them and put them on the patterns so they would dry that way, and they&8217;d dry so hard and stiff you wouldn&8217;t even have to iron them,&8221; Dixon said.

She would also do other laundry and sewing and would cook for the nuns when their regular cook was off, and she eventually moved on to work as a janitor for Cathedral School until she retired in 1970.

But that&8217;s when she took up a type of work that still kept her busy and, although its didn&8217;t pay dollars, it paid off in intangible benefits &8212; working with youth at her church, Zion Chapel A.M.E.

She not only taught Sunday school there for many years, but also took a more active role, accompanying them on trips to the Gulf Coast, New Orleans and other destinations.

&8220;You know young people &8212; they want to be on the go,&8221; said Dixon, who married in her 40s and didn&8217;t have children of her own.

Dixon didn&8217;t attend school beyond the eighth-grade but takes great pride in having schooled hundreds of area children in the Bible. And she takes pride in what

They&8217;ve become.

&8220;Many of them are elders in their own churches now, or pastoring their own churches,&8221; Dixon said. &8220;I&8217;m glad I was able to have an influence on so many young people.&8221;