Musical Life Mourned

By Michael Bromka

As befitted her self-dramatized grandeur, Brenda Rickell’s western epitaph might be “died with her boots on.”

Truth underpins legend. Still working at 78, she keeled over in worn tennies. Timewise coworkers phoned 911 and administered CPR. EMTs rushed her to CMC, thence to UMC Lubbock.

During a week of medical intervention, doctors diagnosed a non-survivable brain bleed. Life support was unplugged. Brenda held on thereafter, perhaps inwardly singing operatic arias from her college diva era. On Friday, February 27, 2026, her soul transcended.

Outgoing lifelong, she equally mixed drama with comedy. In Maryland, her too-young birth mother lateraled infant Brenda to adoptive parents. Decades thereafter, at their second funeral, adult Brenda met her birth mother and half-siblings. She was doubly a family gal.

Brenda’s adoptive parents had seen to her early training in music. She refined her skills and earned her bachelor’s degree from James Madison University in Virginia, majoring in piano and voice.

“But teaching elementary school came as a shock. I went from performing opera to singing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider.’ Many pent-up students viewed music class as time to goof off. After two years, I got out while I still loved children and music. It took time to nurse back my singing voice.”

With the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Brenda has sung in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the National Cathedral. Performing brought her joy.

Brenda spent a decade taking orders for Maryland Cup Corporation, handling their New England region. Her favorite phone customers were Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the ice cream entrepreneurs of Ben & Jerry’s.

Brenda’s next career was in home health care as a certified nurse’s aide. She loved her many elderly patients. But the downside was grieving over many deaths in her 16 years of service.

“Losing sweet elder friends took its toll.” On weekends, she also worked in a facility caring for Alzheimer’s patients. That was challenging but manageable—until one Johns Hopkins administrator eliminated the use of anti-dementia medicine.

“The ensuing mayhem was God’s way of telling me I needed a new career! I sought someplace away from 90% humidity and 10-foot snow drifts. A magazine article about Carlsbad drew me here.”

For nearly a decade, Brenda mentored phone workers at The Connection. She also answered phones, taking orders for companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Tempur-Pedic, and Harriet Carter.

Aside from paid work, Brenda volunteered for 15 years as a docent at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens.

“The lovely staff, visitors, animals, and landscaping make a haven in Carlsbad.”

Medical issues rendered Brenda childless. Despite prior happy courtships, she waited till age 59 to wed Carlsbad native Steven Armstrong, then 47.

“He’s a classical pianist, a scholarly autodidact, charming, witty, a good cook, and a great kisser,” Brenda assessed.

They married at 7 p.m. on July 7, 2007. In marriage, they were equal partners. Disabled by a near-fatal house fire as a young man, Steven made a handy house husband.

Music remained Brenda’s quest. In 2015, Tony Moreno engaged her to teach piano and voice at Tony’s Music Center at 605 W. Mermod St. He provided scheduling and a venue for lessons. They held periodic recitals.

Brenda said age six was ideal for kids beginning piano. “Flourishing as musicians, they tend to get top grades in school.”

Brenda preferred voice students in their mid-teens. Voice took self-discipline, involved stretching and breathing exercises, but yielded impressive projection. One of her baritones aspired to roles in TV and film. But the COVID quarantines shut down businesses like Tony’s. Brenda’s half-century of music tutoring petered out.

This reporter met Brenda in 1999, verifying addresses for the decennial census. Later, they were colleagues at Denny’s, where, as a hostess, she seated diners. Not everyone was patient. And Brenda occasionally stumbled regarding “the customer’s always right.” One evening, she gave a salty reply to a drunken diner. On Facebook, he posted a gripe, and Brenda was out of a job.

Friends rejoiced and urged her to ride unemployment for six months. Instead, she landed her final shelf-stocking job within a week.

At Timewise (previously Chevron), Brenda kept busy five days per week in five- to eight-hour shifts. She took deliveries, stocked shelves, cleaned windows, and swept the parking lot. Twice per week, a truck delivered up to 19 “totes” (hefty trapezoidal plastic bins of merchandise). Brenda priced, tagged, and shelved myriad items throughout her shift.

Colleague Misty Simer said, “I loved working with her. Brenda never missed a birthday—card, cake—making each of us feel special.”

Stocking, she sat on her little stool and scooted around. When a brand was fully shelved, Brenda would issue both call and response: “Hostess is done! Nobody cares!” Before a break, she’d face her reflection in a cooler and ironically say, “You get an A plus plus!”

She was territorial regarding work, sometimes testy. “Why’d you tidy my parking lot?” or “Don’t touch my windows!”

“She told stories about herself. In Germany, she nearly got married. There was a prince from some unspecified emirate…” Simer said.

“In general, Brenda was fun, ever joking, dressing up as a clown on Halloween. In winter, a music notation sweater and scarf. With her (final, new-used) car, she and Steven schemed of a trip to Santa Fe.”

Colleague Karen Coffman recalled the car. Brenda’s first winter, she griped about having no heater.

“‘Miss Brenda, that’s a brand-new vehicle. How come you ain’t got a heater?’

“‘I don’t know how to work it!’”

“So, I took her outside, showed her how to work the heater. First hot day of spring, we went back out to learn shutting off the heat and turning on A.C. Couple weeks later, it’s ‘Will you help me again? My radio’s stuck on Spanish only. How do I change the channel?’”

In 2025, Steven’s health declined. Eventually, he entered nursing homes, first in Artesia, then in Carlsbad. Perhaps from no longer sharing meals, Brenda leaned down from plump to slender. In mid-November 2025, Steven passed away. Brenda and her friends held a graveside service.

Previously, for Steven’s sister Kay, and thereafter for Steven as well, Brenda had been a Herculean caregiver. Her work gave her purpose, but she wasn’t getting younger.

From youth through seniority, Brenda smoked cigarettes. More recently, she had graduated to vaping. However, she might bum a ciggy from a colleague two or three times per workday. In return, she’d buy that coworker a weekly pack. Sinful pleasures. Small wonder she coveted her parking lot work.

Brenda’s life, marriage, friendships, work, and music supported her faith as a Bahá’í, rare in Carlsbad. Bahá’í is a world faith that embraces all races and religions as one.

“I pray throughout each day, and God is central in my life,” she once said. “God imbues the joy which brightens my life, love, and work.”

Perhaps within her homestretch coma in Lubbock, Brenda Rickell was silently intoning a Bahá’í chant of farewell. By all who knew this witty, loving, hardworking woman, Brenda will long be remembered and much missed.