Last Sunday night I was taking tickets at a jazz show at the Maintenance Shop, and a procrastinating Music 102 student skipped up to the door. With a meek grin, he asked if I could write “Ames Jazz Quartet” on one of the ticket stubs so he could get credit for his class.

“Sure,” I said. “Tickets are $5 for students.”

“Well,” he tried cunningly, “Is there any way I could just have a ticket stub? I’m supposed to meet some friends at People’s at 8 o’clock, and I really can’t stay for the whole show.”

It was right about then that my blood began to boil.

Not only was he blowing off an experience he may never forget, but he was also unwilling to fork over five bucks.

“Um, sorry,” I managed, with controlled frustration. “You’ll have to sit down and watch the show just like everybody else.”

Rolling his eyes with a huge sigh of frustration, he turned around and shuffled out the door.

A part of me was really annoyed by this guy’s attitude, but at the same time, his ignorance made me a little sad.

Even though Ames is located in a place not commonly referred to as a cultural mecca, the smorgasbord of performing arts acts that are shipped into this little college town isn’t given the attention or credit it deserves. It made me sad that this 102 student wasn’t even willing to give it a chance.

During the past 4 1/2 years while I’ve been a student at Iowa State, I’ve witnessed performances from some of the same acts that regularly play venues in mega-performing-arts hot spots in downtown Manhattan and San Francisco.

Due to some freak, cosmic accident, huge names such as the Grammy award-winning Emerson Quartet have played the Ames City Auditorium, the New York City Opera National Company has brought a couple of rafter-raisers to Stephens Auditorium, jazz guru T.S. Monk has played the Maintenance Shop a few times, and we’ve gotten a taste of Broadway more than once as favorites including “Damn Yankees” and “West Side Story” have passed through.

In the past, these shows have been known to attract concertgoers from places such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Omaha, community members from Ames and Des Moines, but only a pool of students from ISU. And since the “students of today are the audience of tomorrow,” this worries me.

Over the past couple decades, the number of symphony orchestras has quadrupled, the number of dance companies have increased from 37 to over 250, and there are nearly eight times as many theaters. To match these growing numbers, the artist work force has expanded to nearly 1.7 million people.

Indeed, there is a feast to be devoured.

Unfortunately, unless more ISU students awaken to the value that is found in this subculture, concert diversity in Ames might be restricted to repeat shows from the Goo Goo Dolls and Shania Twain.

The few who are interested in seeing something that can’t be found in a local bar might have to buy a plane ticket to go across the country just to see the symphony, while college campuses in other parts of the Midwest enjoy what ISU might have been able to support with the right funding.

Gone will be the fanciful ballets and musicals that fuel our imaginations and the orchestral music that can give us a window into the minds and lives of the great composers and musicians.

In order to keep these experiences at arm’s length, an interested audience of students must develop.

An audience that doesn’t walk out after 15 minutes of the show because there wasn’t enough to “look” at on stage.

An audience that recognizes the tremendous amount of hard work and sometimes thankless practice that is poured into a recital, ballet or musical.

An audience that wants to get more from a performance than a ticket stub.

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Ashley Hassebroek is a senior in journalism and mass communication and music from Council Bluffs.