PROVO — Her last name is emblazoned in giant gold letters above the new cultural arts center in Provo, but for Sandra Covey, it's not about her — it's about the artists.
"It looks great," Sandra Covey said, motioning to the Covey Center for the Arts at 425 W. Center in Provo. "It's kinda embarrassing though. I just wanted my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids to see that you give back to the community."
Covey and her husband, author Stephen R. Covey, donated $2 million to the center, which had been struggling to gather all the required funds for the $8.5 million project.
The city converted the old Provo library into the downtown arts center.
"It got to the point where there was so much money, but unless there was $2 million more, they didn't think they could go on," Sandra Covey said.
So, knowing how much his wife, also a musician and performer, loved this project, Stephen Covey, who wrote "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," made the donation as a Christmas present for her two years ago.
"People knew it was a go," she said, "but (with that donation), banks and businesses started coming together."
The Coveys donated $1.5 million and promised the other $500,000 if matching funds could be raised. Those donations are nearly done trickling in, said Provo Mayor Lewis Billings.
Fund raising continues, however, in hopes that the center will be able to provide a $3 million endowment and grants to entice performance groups to come, Billings said.
The Covey Center for the Arts was officially unveiled Thursday. Billings made a presentation to the couple on the stage overlooking a 670-seat performance hall.
"Is this place incredible or what?" Billings asked, as he stepped out from the wings with Kathryn S. Allen, executive director of the Provo Arts Council, at the unveiling on Thursday. "We're grateful to many people. It takes money to get significant things done, and it's hard to get contributions until there's vision. And it's hard to get vision without passion."
And Sandra Covey is the embodiment of that vision, he said, as he walked down into the audience to lead her to the stage.
"It is a great honor to welcome (the Coveys) onto the stage," Billings said. "They made it possible for there to even be a stage."
Performers Jennie Larsen and Jeanie Madsen showed off the performance hall acoustics with a piano and vocal duet that included classical, jazz and show tunes.
Sandra Covey also spent many years on stage as a performer and soloist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which she joined for a tour to Europe at age 17. It was while on tour that she met Stephen Covey, a choir liaison.
When the couple married, Sandra Covey put aside her musical dreams and raised nine children, dragging them to choir performances, ballets and operas.
And now, Sandra Covey's children and grandchildren can come to Provo — rather than drive to Salt Lake City — for theater and music performances.
She joked Thursday that only dead people have buildings named after them.
And she laughed, saying that after a broken foot, cellulitis, a knee replacement and spinal stenosis, she hopes to make it to the official opening in October.
"This is a lifetime dream," she said. "It's really the thrill of a lifetime."
Stephen Covey said he was "enormously impressed" with the facility. "I'm so grateful to be with a person of such love of the arts. Such vision with all that passion behind it and the discipline to make it happen."
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com