By Michael Swanger

 

Mary Gerber was a 16-year-old Minnesota high school student toting a Kodak camera when she traveled to Clear Lake on a cold Monday night with her brother and two other fans to attend the Winter Dance Party at the Surf Ballroom on Feb. 2, 1959. It was her first concert and she wanted to take a few photographs of rock ’n’ roll singers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, whose music she enjoyed.

 

“I was excited to be there,” said Gerber, 76. “I liked Ritchie and Buddy and I was in awe seeing them. I couldn’t believe I was there. It was a school night and I was surprised my folks let me go.”

 

The images of that night, from her camera and her memory, remain clear after 60 years.

 

“There was a good crowd on hand,” Gerber said. “Buddy got a lot of applause, but Ritchie had more girls screaming. The Big Bopper got a lot, too.”

 

During the show, Gerber took seven photographs from various vantage points in the audience. She used the camera’s small cube flash to help illuminate her images of the stars, including opening acts Frankie Sardo and Dion and the Belmonts. One photo captures Holly playing drums with Dion.

 

“There were very few people dancing. People were standing in front. I wanted to get closer to take pictures, but I wasn’t a pushy kid,” she said.

 

Gerber did muster the courage to ask Sardo and Dion to pose for a photo while they stood at a counter drinking soda pops. They obliged. Unfortunately, she did not train her photographic eye on J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who along with Holly and Valens died in a plane crash just hours after the concert.

 

“Now I wish I would’ve taken his picture,” she said. “But back then you took one or two photos. I had a 12-picture roll of film and every picture you took was money spent.”

 

The next morning, during choir practice at Kiester-Walters High School, Gerbers heard the shocking news about the ill-fated plane carrying Holly, Valens and Richardson.

 

“Someone heard the news on the radio. I was sitting next to my cousin and we started to cry,” she said.

 

Eventually, Gerber’s film was developed. When the negatives and prints were returned to her, she put them in a drawer where they stayed for years.

 

“I didn’t think anyone wanted to see them, so I didn’t show them to anybody,” said the lifelong resident of Walters, Minn.

 

In 2008, the Mason City Globe-Gazette published a story about two music fans — Jim McCool and Sevan Garabedian — searching for photographs from Holly’s last concert. Gerber, who worked at a Minnesota hospital, was told about the story by a colleague and emailed a copy of one of her photographs to Garabedian. That November, the two men bought Gerber’s negatives and original prints.

 

“Finding them was like stumbling upon one of the Holy Grails of rock and roll,” said McCool. “The moment we saw the KRIB sign in the picture, it was an adrenaline rush. We knew that was, and still is, a Mason City radio station. That’s when we knew we found the real thing.”

 

McCool said their search was not motivated by money.

 

“The first thing on our minds was, ‘Now we can reveal them at the Surf Ballroom and have them permanently on display,’” he said.

 

The two men kept their promise. Gerber’s photos are displayed at the Surf. They have also allowed media outlets like “NBC Nightly News,” Rolling Stone and Iowa History Journal to use some of them.

 

Gerber is happy that her photos are seeing the light of day.

 

“I thought it was a good idea to let people see them, including the families, instead of keeping them in a drawer,” she said. “I think it means something to a lot of people.”

 

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