Staff Feature | Laura Lynn

STAFF SPOTLIGHT LAURA LYNN ROTH

Meet Laura Lynn Roth, a dedicated docent, a member of the guest services team, and the daughter of a Rockette. Read on for more. As told to Caroline Portillo. Lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

I was born and raised in New York City, in Manhattan. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Roth, turned me on to art. She taught me about Picasso.

Before I was born, my mom was a Rockette. My dad was a classically trained percussionist from Juilliard. He was a drummer for ballet companies, outdoor concerts in Central Park, The Nutcracker, and different shows at Lincoln Center and on Broadway. After the Rockettes, my mom was an airline stewardess.

Growing up, I would occasionally play hooky to go to museums. The Met, the Frick, the Museum of Natural History, and MoMA, especially the outdoor sculpture garden. I went to the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, the one from the 1980 film Fame. I worked for talk show host Phil Donahue for seven years and worked with hundreds of celebrities, such as Michael J. Fox and Carol Burnett. She’s the sweetest lady ever, by the way. Acted like I was her daughter.

Those times were very glam. The perks were incredible. We once chartered the Concorde to fly to Europe. We went from New York City to Nice, France in three hours. I also got to go to the daytime Emmy Awards and ride on Donahue’s private yacht that circled Manhattan.

In the late 1980s, I helped set a Guinness World Record. A dancer for years, I was one of 3,000 tap dancers dancing in front of Macy’s on 34th Street. We moved in Charlotte in 1994, when Elliot got a job in studio operations at ESPN. We live in the Fahrenheit building.

I became a docent seven years ago, when I answered a newspaper ad in The Charlotte Observer. I really love the Craft & Design collection. Now, I work in guest services, but I still give tours. I like to wear both hats.

I also volunteer bottle feeding baby orphan kittens at Animal Care & Control. I always hope they get fostered and adopted. The majority do make it. I also work with the homeless at Room at the Inn through my church, Threshold.

I married my college sweetheart, Elliot. And whenI had our first child—the first of two sons—my whole world changed. I decided to be a stay-at-home mom, and we moved to Boca Raton, Florida. Look for more staff spotlights in upcoming issues.